DownshoreDrift

Does Al Mohler Need to Repent of Promoting Calvinism?

By "repent," I mean to turn around. I am not asserting that he has committed a sin against God. I simply mean to stop progressing in one direction, turn around, and head in another direction. As the Calvinist/Traditionalist war continues to heat up in the SBC, the focus of the issue should not go to Lifeway's "The Gospel Project" or Founders or many of the other targets, in my opinion. The focus should go to the one SBC entity that has as its president a man who has clearly articulated a view that Calvinism is the only logical option for thinking evangelicals who are serious about gospel fidelity. I think that is a bridge too far. 

Dr. Al Mohler is a 5 point Calvinist and he has led Southern in that direction quite obviously. That is not a big problem on the surface. Calvinism is a legitimate theological perspective in Southern Baptist life and it has much merit to it. Anyone trying to remove Calvinist influence from Baptist life should be reprimanded and ignored, in my opinion. However, has Mohler gone beyond just being a Calvinist and speaking and working from that perspective? Has he actually moved into the realm of promoting Calvinism over other theological perspectives in SBC life? If he has, then he has gone beyond the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 on an essential issue. He has moved Calvinism to a second tier issue (one of the ones that you divide over denominationally), instead of a third tier issue (one upon which you can continue in fellowship but disagree). I submit to you the following evidence:

From a Christianity Today article on Mohler from 2010:

"Mohler believes that the only intellectually robust defense of biblical inerrancy lies in the Reformed scholasticism that emerged from the Synod of Dort (1618) and enjoyed its apogee at late-19th-century Princeton Theological Seminary, where James Boyce trained. Non-Calvinist conservatives, Mohler says, "are not aware of the basic structures of thought, rightly described as Reformed, that are necessary to protect the very gospel they insist is to be eagerly shared." He thinks that Reformed theology's appeal to young people proves its unique imperviousness to the corrosive forces of 21st-century life. "If you're a young Southern Baptist and you've been swimming against the tide of secularism … you're going to have to have a structure of thought that's more comprehensive than merely a deck of cards with all the right doctrines." In this regard, Mohler is just as elitist as the moderates of old Southern: he is certain he has the truth, and those Baptists who protest simply are not initiated intothe systematic splendor of Reformed thought."

Mohler, in an interview with Kevin de Young and Ligon Duncan of The Gospel Coalition has also gone on record as saying,

"If you are a theologically minded, deeply convictional, young evangelical, if you are committed to the gospel and you want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ - if you want to see gospel built and structured and committed churches, your theology is just going to end up basically being reformed, basically being something like this New Calvinism or you're going to have invent some kind of label for what is just going to end up being the same thing. There just are not options out there, and that is something that I think frustrates some people, but when I'm asked about the New Calvinism, I'm going to say basically, Where else are they going to go? Who else is going to answer the questions, who else is going to offer the resources they need, where else are they going to connect? This is a generation that understands that they want to say the same thing that Paul said. They want to stand with the Apostles. They want to stand with old dead people. And, they know they are going to have to if they are going to preach and teach the truth." From video.

In a subsequent speech given to the state editors of Baptist papers in 2011, Mohler qualified his statements by saying: 

"...Calvinism is the shape of the future, because the options otherwise don’t very much exist. Now if you just quote me on that and put that in the paper it’s going to make people mad. And it’s not tribal language. It is because when I say Calvinism here, I’m going back to 1845, I’m going back to 1925, I’m going back to 1963, and I’m including all of you in that. Now if you’re offended by that just realize that any outside observer looking at the SBC, looking at our confessions of faith, would put us on the Calvinist side of the ledger.

"Now I want to tell you I am a five-point Calvinist, all right? I never write about that, I don’t speak about that. If you want to know that there you have it. But I am at home in the Southern Baptist Convention of the Baptist Faith & Message. I was not raised in a church that talks about Calvinism. I am not now a member of a church that talks about Calvinism. The whole SBC, the Baptist Faith & Message and the New Hampshire Confession is clearly out of the basically Calvinist direction. Now that’s tribal. And one of the problems with this is people hear that as tribal. And one of the problems is that people hear that as tribal. And to hear that as five-point Calvinism, look, that is, that’s not what I’m talking about here. There are amongst us those who are more Calvinist and those who are less. But the Baptist Faith & Message excludes Arminianism. The SBCs founders identified Arminianism as a heresy they sought to confront." Taken from transcript of speech.

          
So, here is where we stand with Mohler and Southern Seminary: Calvinism is the only possible place for thinking, theological minded young evangelicals to land. Calvinists say the same thing that Paul said and that the other Apostles said and there is not really any other way to explain the Gospel. And, by the way, all Southern Baptists are Calvinists of some sort or another because we are not Arminians and we don't believe that you can lose your salvation. So, you can have varying degrees of Calvinists short of the 5 point variety like Mohler, but all Southern Baptists are actually Calvinists of some sort and that is just how it is. Mohler asserts Calvinism, but it is not 5 point Calvinism - it is any aspect of the 5 points of TULIP and he says that ALL Southern Baptists fall in that distinction.

Of course, that is my take on it. So, when Traditionalists and Non-Calvinists are upset about what they think is a Calvinist take over in SBC life and Southern Seminary has a president who is a very strident cultural critic with a sharp tone, and there are some professors at Southern who are very much focused on Calvinism, and there are graduates of Southern who are quite militantly Calvinistic, even explaining it as the gospel itself, then this starts to make some sense. It makes sense just based on the words of Al Mohler alone.

Here is the issue in Southern Baptist life: From my understanding, you are not a Calvinist unless you affirm all 5 points of TULIP. There cannot be a 4 point or 3 point Calvinist. That is a false distinction. Calvinism according to the Synod of Dort (and it is debatable if even Calvin would have agreed with Dort) is a theological system that falls apart if you remove one of the points. I do not submit to Mohler's classification of me as a Calvinist, even though I would agree with most of TULIP. I am not a Calvinist. And, the SBC is not Calvinistic just because it believes in the perseverance of the saints or eternal security or however individual Baptists describe it. That is a false designation and it is causing great controversy.

We need to decide if Calvinism is of the 5 point variety in affirming all of TULIP or if it should be applied to those who affirm 2, 3, or 4 points as well. If we cannot even agree on what Calvinism is, then we should quit using the term for any but those who claim all 5 points or are truly Reformed and baptize infants, or we should use it for all Southern Baptists, even those who just agree with one point, ala Molher. Using it interchangeably across the spectrum is a semantic disaster for everyone - and both true Calvinists trying enhance their ranks and Traditionalists looking for targets to fire upon are both guilty. Traditionalists add to this problem when they call Danny Akin and Trevin Wax and many others who do not affirm all of TULIP as Calvinists.

Some Calvinists have called me a Calvinist because of things I believe, but I reject the label because I understand a Calvinist to be someone who affirms all of TULIP, which I do not. I refuse to qualify myself under a false theological distinction just so I can be labeled by others in their attempt to create a category for everyone. I think there are a whole lot of Southern Baptists who would agree with that perspective.

Here is where Mohler is wrong in how he has gone about this: As an SBC entity head who sits under the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, he has every right to be a Calvinist. Calvinism is included in that confession's soteriology. But, he does not have permission to uphold Calvinism above other perspectives that are also within the bounds of the BFM2000 or to apply the designation to everyone. This has been my contention in these debates for the past 7 years now. There must be room for Baptists who agree with the BFM2000 to coexist together, discuss, debate, disagree, and then work together under the umbrella of orthodox Christianity. When one view or another begins to prevail and attempts to supersede or degrade another, not in conversation but or personal belief, but in delegitimizing it, then we end up in a place of massive theological and denominational conflict - basically where we are right now. We also should allow people to self-designate without be labeled by others for political purposes, whether you are a Traditionalists who wants to be defined apart from Calvinism, or whether you adhere to 3 or the 4 points of Calvinism. The labeling by the other side so they can win arguments needs to stop. It seems that Mohler is guilty of this as well.

Al Mohler is on Frank Page's Calvinism Task Force. Will one of the first acts of the Task Force be to ask Mohler to repent (i.e., turn around and back off) of his statements asserting Calvinism as the only possible theological system for thinking evangelicals? Or, should he clarify again in a way that does not enforce a controversial designation upon people who do not want it? Because as long as his stated view is being promoted, I do not see where we can have peaceful coexistence for the sake of mission. And, I fear that honest attempts at cooperation between Calvinists and Non-Calvinists on things like The Gospel Project will constantly be seen in a sinister light by those who fear a Calvinist Takeover of the SBC. We need to step away from semantic confusion and co-opting and deal clearly with these issues. It would be great if Al Mohler would lead us in this.

Does Spirituality/Religion Prove the Existence of God? (NT Wright)

One might ask if it is reasonable to have faith in God or the supernatural.  Many of the new atheists and secularists say that faith is an utterly unreasonable assertion that cannot be proven in any regard. They say that we should only trust what can be proven and observed and since God cannot be proven and "faith" cannot be verified, it is therefore unreasonable - or, it is something apart from reason that moves into what Francis Schaeffer called the "Upper Story" of the mystical and mythical as opposed to the "Lower Story" of the logical and reasonable.

In the book, belief: readings on the reason for faith edited by Francis S. Collins, NT Wright develops what I believe to be a compelling argument regarding the existence of faith, religion, and spirituality.  It is not conclusive, but it is compelling, in my opinion, and should be considered.  Wright says,

The Christian explanation of the renewed interest in spirituality is quite straightforward. If anything like the Christian story is in fact true (in other words, if there is a God whom we can know most clearly in Jesus), this interest is exactly what we should expect; because in Jesus we glimpse a God who loves people and wants them to know and respond to that love. In fact, this is what we should expect if any of the stories told by religious people - that is, the great majority of people who have ever lived - are true: if there is any kind of divine force or being, it is at least thinkable that humans would find some kind of engagement with this being or power to be an attractive or at least interesting phenomenon.

This is precisely why there are such things as religions in the first place. When the astronomers see that a planet is behaving in a way they can't explain by reference to other already known planets, or to the sun itself, they postulate a further planet of a sort, size, and location that will explain the strange behavior. That's actually how the remoter planets were discovered. When physicists discover phenomena they can explain by no other means, they postulate new entities, not themselves capable of being directly observed, that explain them. That's how quarks and similar strange things have entered our language and understanding.

On the other hand, part of the Christian story (and for that matter, the Jewish and Muslim stories) is that human beings have been so seriously damaged by evil that what they need isn't simply better self-knowledge, or better social conditions, but help, and indeed rescue, from outside themselves. We should expect that in the quest for spiritual life many people will embrace options that are, to put it no more strongly for the moment, less than what would actually be best for them. People who have been starved of water for a long time will drink anything, even if it is polluted. People kept without food for long periods will eat anything they can find, from grass to uncooked meat. Thus, by itself, 'spirituality' may appear to be part of the problem as well as part of the solution.

Wright is saying that our quest for spirituality through religion and mystical experiences and encounters with the Divine is, in itself, a form of proof that there is something out there that we cannot quite grasp or explain - but, it is there nonetheless. Instead of assuming that almost the entire human race is deluded (and even atheists define themselves over and against the idea of religion and a quest for God, thus, even as unbelievers they are dominated by the thought of it), we might rather agree with Ecclesiastes 3:11 that says that God has set eternity in the hearts of men.

Wright goes on to say,

...we return to the possibility that the widespread hunger for spirituality, which has been reported in various ways across the whole of human experience, is a genuine signpost to something that remains just around the corner, out of sight. It may be the echo of a voice - a voice that is calling, not so loudly as to compel us to listen whether we choose to or not, but not so quietly as to be drowned out altogether by the noises going on in our heads and our world. If it were to join itself up with the passion for justice, some might conclude that it would at least be worth listening for further echoes of the same voice.

Perhaps, the echoes that we hear of a Voice that we hope and even know to the be there are actually coming from a hill in Galilee 2000 years ago where a Jewish Messiah was crucified and, as his followers claim, was raised from the dead. That is quite a jump, I know, but if true, it changes everything.

Why Dave Miller Won 2nd VP of the SBC

Last week, I was asked by Iowa pastor and editor of SBCVoices.com, Dave Miller, to give his nomination speech for 2nd VP of the SBC in New Orleans. It was an honor to do so. Dave was not supposed to win. He threw his hat in the ring on Friday evening, June 15, with the convention starting just a few days later. Also running for the position was Eric Hankins, pastor of First Baptist Church, Oxford, MS and author of the infamous Traditionalist statement on Baptist soteriology.  The convention was in Louisiana, the home state of Eric's father, David Hankins, the executive director of Louisiana Baptists. We were effectively playing on Eric's home turf, and home states and origin mean a lot in Baptist politics.  I called a friend of mine on Friday to ask him what he thought about Dave running for 2nd VP and me giving the speech. This guy knows his stuff when it comes to Baptist life. He said that he thought Dave would get beat badly. I tended to agree because everyone knows a blogger/pastor from Iowa can't win an SBC office, but I liked the insurmountable odds and more than that, I liked Dave. I was hoping for 15-20% of the vote, honestly. Nothing against Dave, but I thought I knew enough about Baptist politics to know that you don't beat an establishment candidate at the last minute on his home turf. You just don't.

Well, Dave won. He had 40% of the vote on the first ballot leading to a runoff because Brad Atkins, pastor and president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, also entered the race on Saturday. In the first ballot Dave got 40%, Eric Hankins got 35%, and Brad Atkins got 25%.  After I gave my speech, I left the Convention Hall and went and did some other things. I did not expect Dave to win, so when I heard about how he was leading in the first ballot and it was headed to a runoff. I was surprised, but still did not give it a lot of thought. I went to get some coffee with a few guys across the street and got a text message telling me that they were voting again for the final election. So, I ran back over to the hall to cast my ballot for Dave. Later, I heard that Dave won with 60% of the vote to Eric Hankins 40%. I was surprised.

Since then, I have had a few conversations with people who were speculating as to what the election meant. Was it a repudiation of Hankin's Traditionalist statement on Baptist Soteriology? Did the Calvinists rise up and elect Dave? Was it a triumph for social media in the SBC? Was it because Dave was from outside of the South?  Maybe it was some of that, but I doubt that 75% of the messengers know what is happening on Baptist blogs and with theological statements that people are signing. A lot do, but probably most do not.

Here is what I think happened:

1. Baptists love missions - Dave is the son of missionary and pastor parents.

2. We want to diversify - Dave pastors in Iowa. We know we need to expand leadership outside the South.

3. Dave's church led Iowa in CP and Lottie Moon giving - that resonates.

4. Baptists love the idea of unity - Dave is a unifier and that was clearly stated.  Even though, as Jerry Rankin said on his blog, realized unity is often just an illusion in the SBC. We tend to attack and divide from one another. But, I think that deep down, Baptists WANT to be unified with other Baptists. Dave's election was an appeal to the better angels of our nature. If we aren't there yet, we want to be.

5. We want to cooperate in missions - Dave calls for that.  We want this for the same reasons that we see in #4, even if we do not always do it.

6. [EDIT] - Blogs/Twitter - While not the reason that Miller won, social media did stir up support and get the word out to a percentage of messengers who would not have known Dave or knew what he stood for. It was not a majority, but enough knew Dave from his role in Baptist Blogs to give him some identity. Plus, there was a big "get out the vote" campaign for Dave on Twitter that did not hurt.

I do not think that Dave's election was a repudiation of Hankins or the Traditionalist document or an affirmation of Calvinism or anything like that. I am not in favor of the Traditionalist document nor am I a Calvinist, but I don't think that those issues really came into play because I just don't think that most of the messengers keep up with all of that as much as we here in blogland would like to think they do.  I think that they saw a guy from Iowa who was doing a good job of calling us to work together who had a heart for Christ and for missions. I think that Dave is who Baptists want to become and who we hope to see more of in non-Southern states.

Dave talks about a new Baptist majority. I think that we might just see one and I think that it might look a lot like Dave Miller - regular guys who are working hard for the Kingdom in out of the way places with a focus on Christ, a love for the lost, and a desire to work together.  I am not trying to pump up Dave here - I am talking about us, what we want and who we hope to be. I think that the election of Fred Luter goes along the same lines. Rev. Luter is imminently qualified, but I think that we are also saying that it is time to stop being a white denomination and truly be multiracial. We believe that Rev. Luter is the person to help us do that.

In a year when we voted to allow for an alternative name to help us in ministry outside the South (Great Commission Baptists), we elected our first African American president, we voted to pass a resolution on unity in the gospel according to the BF&M, and we elected a 2nd VP from a small church in Iowa, I think that the message is clear: Baptists want to unify around Christ and His gospel, we want to be diverse both ethnically and geographically, we want to cooperate in missions to the ends of the earth, and we want to stop arguing about small things.  Those are pretty strong statements and I think that Dave Miller's election was part of it. I hope we live up to them.

SBC 2012: The Great, the Bad, and the Sad

SBC 2012 in New Orleans was a good gathering for a denomination that is known for its ugly fights and petty disagreements. It is easy to dismiss the SBC (and other denominations) as simply an unnecessary organization that has little to do with true Christianity. But, I would disagree. While I don't place my faith in the SBC, it is a group of Christians that are commanded to walk together in unity (as are all Christians). When that happens, it is a good thing. Overall, there was a sense that most desire unity and a focus on Christ and our mission to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. The talk in the convention halls (at least in the conversations that I engaged in) almost exclusively involved mission, unity, and moving forward. Of course, there was talk about controversy and division, but it was primarily couched in the perspective that we hope we can move past this and just get along instead of hoping one side or another "wins."  Maybe the "winner-take-all" language is beginning to wear on Baptists for the time being.  I am hopeful.

A few observations about what I found Great, Bad, and Sad. Each of these points could turn into future blog posts, if I am so inclined. Some of these things are particularly related to my own experience at the Convention and would not necessarily be shared by all. There is certainly a lot to reflect on:

The Great

•  The unanimous election of Fred Luter as SBC president is the highlight, for sure. It was a holy moment as 170 years of Baptist history as well as the founding of the SBC was practically repudiated by our call for an African-American to lead us. As Russell Moore said, "Jim Crow is dead, Jesus Christ is alive." Death has been swallowed up in victory and we experienced a bit of that as we see once again that God is reconciling all things to Himself in Christ. This election demonstrated once again that racism as an ideology will be forced to bow before the Cross of Christ. If you understand our history at all, you will know how amazing this is.
• Overall sense of unity.  A resolution on unity around the understanding of the Gospel as presented in the Baptist Faith & Message passed almost unanimously. That is a good thing. Even though we have Calvinists and Non-Calvinists in the SBC, we do not wish to divide over soteriology or present one side over another. The SBC has spoken. The tent is large enough for both views and we will not tolerate one view trying to assert itself over another. Can we move on, now?
• Election of Dave Miller for 2nd VP.  This one is a bit personal, as I was asked by Dave to give his nomination speech. Dave winning this thing was not supposed to happen. He is a pastor/blogger from Iowa on the same ballot as a strong Traditionalist leader from Mississippi in the home state of his father, the Executive Director of Lousiana who announced weeks ago. Dave's announcement was Friday night on this blog (and, of course, SBCVoices). It was inconceivable that Dave would win, but I don't think we know what that word means. Dave got 60% of the vote.   I think that Dave is a good candidate who desires to see Baptists work together. He has strong opinions and I hope that he continues to share them as editor at SBCVoices.com. We need leaders who will speak out for the things that Dave believes in, not be quiet now that they are in leadership. I am glad to see a candidate like Dave and I was happy to be a part of electing him to help us work TOGETHER.
• Passing of Resolution 8 on the Gospel and Human Needs Ministry.  I wrote this resolution to affirm and encourage all Baptists to see the meeting of human needs through acts of kindness, service, and love as implications of the Gospel. In Christ, false dividing walls come down and we are called to love others sacrificially. The Scripture clearly shows that demonstration of good deeds is to accompany proclamation of the Good News. Many Baptists do this, but I am hoping that this resolution will push forward the idea that this is what we are all supposed to be doing in our life and ministry all the time. Again, more blogging will come on this later.
• LOTS of younger people at the SBC this year. More than I have ever seen, and that can only be a good thing. It seems that we might be turning a corner in this area and repositioning for the future. Also, there was more ethnic diversity than I have ever seen. With the news that over 20% of SBC churches are now majority-minority/ethnic churches, it is good to see minority leadership emerging. The presence of young people and minorities in the SBC, especially moving into leadership, gives me a great deal of hope.

The Bad

• There are still many in the SBC who greatly desire power and think that they are entitled to it. I don't understand this kind of thinking. It is great to serve and if asked to lead, we should do so humbly while making much of Jesus. I can't judge hearts and motives, but when I see people become angry because they did not get their way or because they think they lost power or influence in some way, then I know that their focus is on the wrong thing. I know this because I have done it before and had to just let things go and get a grip.
• Apart from the constant chatter from the floor about the use of microphones and parlimentary procedure, there was not much else that rates in the "Bad" category.

The Sad

• SBC Leadership on the platform choosing not to allow discussion on Todd Littleton's motion to agree with the ERLC Trustees and Richard Land that his comments on the Trayvon Martin Affair were wrong. Yesterday morning, I saw Rev. Luter being interviewed by Soledad O'Brien on CNN. She asked him if his election was not a token gesture since Richard Land made comments about Trayvon Martin that some deemed as racist. Rev. Luter had to back up and explain those remarks. The Messengers should have been allowed to AGREE with the ERLC Trustees and Richard Land that his comments were wrong in a motion that would show that the messengers and the SBC as a whole repudiated such remarks.  Not giving us that chance was shortsighted and could be construed as caring more about protecting Richard Land than making the right and prophetic statement. We need to think more about long-term consequences than we do.
• Not bringing out Dwight McKissic's resolution condemning racist language in Mormon Scriptures that have not been repudiated. Rev. McKissic made an impassioned plea for Southern Baptists to speak to these abusive comments, but we refused to do so. Some said that it was because we did not want to condemn just one aspect of Mormonism. Others said that it was because we did not want to get involved in a political debate. When have Baptists ever shied away from condemning anything?  When have we ever shied away from politics?  It can appear to some as though we are not interested in bringing up or condemning anything that might be perceived to be hurtful towards Mitt Romney and his campaign. But, bringing up the inherent racism in Mormonism and repudiating it now would have helped Mitt Romney in the long run by giving him a chance to repudiate the position of Mormonism in their Scriptures early in the summer. It would have also been the right and prophetic thing to do. 

I think that on the previous two issues, Southern Baptists chose to not be prophetic on procedural grounds. But, it appears (on both counts) that Southern Baptist leadership did not want to take positions that might hurt their political candidate or people in the inner circle. We have a long history of thinking primarily about what benefits our perceived interests in situations like this and we are better served to think about long-term implications to the positions that we take on issues related to race and justice.

Summary

Overall, it was a good, historic convention. I am glad that I was a part of it.  I am hopeful for the future of the SBC if we continue in this trajectory and I am excited to see the growing youth and diversity present in our largest gathering. Like everything else, however, we are only as strong as our dependence on the Lord. Let us look to Christ alone.

 

"Jim Crow Is Dead, Jesus Christ Is Alive," and Other SBC 2012 Observations

That was a quote via Russell Moore on Twitter today after Fred Luter was unanimously and with extended standing ovation elected as the first African American president of the Southern Baptist Convention. As Dr. Moore went on to say, the descendent of slaves is now the head of a denomination that was started over the issue of slavery.  It was a holy moment.  Tears were flowing all over the convention hall, including down my cheeks.  I thought about how much history was spoken to today, how we are now telling a better story, and how all things are being made new in Christ.  It was a great day and was the primary reason that I came.

Fred Luter's election also signifies the fact that God is reconciling all things to Himself in Christ. Jim Crow, which seemed so intractable in the South 50-60 years ago, has given way to the Cross of Christ. Injustice will not stand. What is wrong will be made right. Divisions will be healed. The Lion will lay down with the lamb. We experienced an "on earth as it is in heaven" moment today and I praise God that I was there. No, it does not solve everything. There are still racial problems in the SBC - still divisions over personal preference, culture, fear, economics, and prejudice. But, it was a good step along a path that we need to be walking. It matters that the white leadership of the SBC recognized the Christlikeness of Fred Luter and submitted themselves to his leadership today. In Christ, racial distinctions go away and that was demonstrated today.

Fred Luter is completely qualified. This is not a token election just to make a racial statement. He is the right man for the job in every way.  But, today, we were able to see how Christ has qualified an African American man. In the past, we missed that because we were completely blinded by fear, racism, and a desire to protect our "way of life" that stood opposed to Christ. Today, the blinders came off and we saw the beauty of the New Creation, not regarding Fred Luter from a "worldly point of view."  Fred Luter has been qualified. That was never in question. But, today, the SBC became qualified by seeing, just as Dr. King said, the content of a man's character is more important than the color of his skin.

The Young SBC

Has anyone noticed how many young people are at the SBC this year?  When I was last at a convention in San Antonio in 2007, it was primarily senior adults. Now, the number of people under 40, even under 30, is astounding in comparison to past years. We have a long way to go, but again, we seem to be moving in the right direction.

Ethnic Diversity in the SBC is Really Happening

A decade ago, the SBC was 95% white churches and 5% everyone else.  Now, it is more like 80/20 in churches. That is a huge demographic shift in just 10 years. I think the pace of this will just increase. I hope so. But, now we need minority leadership in SBC entities, trustee boards, and positions of leadership. I hope that we will help Rev. Luter appoint qualified minority leadership from all over SBC life to better reflect where we are as a convention and where we are obviously headed.

The IMB/NAMB Seems to be Shifting

I had good conversations with guys from both NAMB and the IMB about their desire to come around local churches and help them lead out in mission and initiate. That is key and it opens the door for the ChurchAsMissionary concept that many of us have been trumpeting for years to grow. I like it.

Lifeway and the Gospel Project

I am really excited about The Gospel Project that Lifeway has put out. I had a couple of conversations with Trevin Wax, the editor of the project. The fears of it being a Calvinist only work are completely unfounded. It seems really solid. I want to look at this more closely and am thinking of using it in our Wednesday Night studies. Trevin and Ed Stetzer showed this video today to introduce the Gospel Project. You should watch it:

  

It has been a good convention. Tomorrow morning at 8:35am, I get to nominate my friend, Dave Miller, for 2nd VP of the SBC. Prayers appreciated.

Dave Miller for 2nd VP of the SBC

Just like the entire leadership structure of the SBC, everytime I want to know what is going on in Southern Baptist life, what the issues of major concern are, and what both pastors and lay people think about what is happening, I go over to SBCVoices.com. SBCVoices is the one-stop-shop of Southern Baptist opinions and opinion makers. Every Baptist blog of note (including this one) is included in the blog aggregator at the top of the page. There are also multiple articles a day posted on the site itself from contributors from all walks of Baptist life. It is a great place to learn, interact, talk about ministry, and hear the opinions of others. One of the major reasons that it works so well is because of its editor, Dave Miller, pastor of Southern Hills Baptist Church in Sioux City, Iowa.  Dave is fair, balanced, and generous in his role as editor. He also has a great wit and a fantastic sense of humor as well as a sharp theological mind and love for Christ and people. Whenever I see Dave chime in, I know that I am going to hear a perspective that is well thought out, reasonable, fair, and Christ-centered.

It is because of all of these qualities that I am glad to be able to nominate Dave for the office of 2nd Vice President of the SBC next week in New Orleans.  Dave is exactly the kind of guy that Baptists need in leadership right now. He is the son of a Southern Baptist pastor and his parents became SBC missionaries. He is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and has served churches in Florida, Virginia, and for the past 21 years, he has pastored in Iowa. He has the background to know how the SBC functions in all respects, but he has also served outside of the South and knows where the SBC should be headed if it is going to thrive in an increasingly post-Christian America.

In addition to Dave's experience, his passion is to see Baptists continue to work together in ever increasing ways. Dave believes strongly (as do I) that our true unity is in Christ, that the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) is our standard of doctrinal unity and that all who agree with it should be able to work together in Baptist life and mission. He also believes and promotes the fact that we should cooperate in the Great Commission both locally and globally and that we should do that through the Cooperative Program.  Dave's church, Southern Hills Baptist, is the leading CP church in Iowa as well as in Lottie Moon and total missions giving.  Dave clearly articulates his hopes and prayers for the SBC in this post at SBCVoices. Good and needed words.

Dave's heartbeat is that we would work together as Baptists according to what we already have in common to know Christ and make Him known to the ends of the earth. He provides a platform for discussion and mutual understanding everyday through SBCVoices and he leads his local church in faithful mission both in Iowa and around the world.  Dave is exactly the kind of leadership that Southern Baptists can hope to have to lead us forward, and for that reason, I will gladly give him my support.

The SBC Is Already Unified, I am Headed to New Orleans, And Other Things

Next week, I will be going to the Southern Baptist Convention's Annual Meeting in New Orleans. There are several reasons that I am excited about this:

1. We get to hopefully elect Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans as SBC president. He is a good man with a sterling ministry record. I heard him speak at the Pastor's Conference in Greensboro, NC in 2006 and he did a fantastic job and has been a real leader in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the rebuild. I look forward to how he will lead the SBC into the future. He is also African-American, and will be the first ever black president of the SBC. If you know anything about our origin and our past, this is a good thing.
2. I get to spend a few days in New Orleans, my birthplace and favorite city in America. Can't wait. I love it down there.
3. I am bringing a resolution on holistic ministry in the SBC. I pray that it makes it out of committee and I think that it will be a good encouragement as we move forward into ministering to our communities in both word and deed.  You can see the text here: A Resolution Supporting Holistic Ministry.
4. I get to see old friends. I used to be heavily involved in Baptist Blogging about 4-5 years ago and knew a lot of people through that. It was a good experience, but life moved on and I did not have the energy to stay involved in controversy. I still participate in discussions every now and then, but not as much as I used to. However, I have met a lot of great people through it and many of them will be in New Orleans next week. Looking forward to reconnecting.

Here are the things that I am not excited about:

1. Calvinist-Traditionalist Controversy. Baptists are fighting again. It is unnecessary.  I don't know if there will be any official move by either group to assert themselves over the other, but the Convention has definitely been affected by this division.  It is more about power than it is about theology, in my opinion. I can tell that because you only have to talk to a representative from each camp for just a moment before they begin to complain that those of their ilk might be shut out of participation in Baptist life in some way.  If it is not directly about power, then it seems to be about access to power. Everyone needs to calm down and carry on according to their convictions.
2. The aging and decline of the SBC. It so often seems as though we are trying to hold on to some greatness that we think we once had.  It is kind of discouraging to go to Annual Meetings because you really do see how gray the SBC is.  I am glad for the participation of the older generation. They should not stop. But, it is indicative of the decline of denominations and all institutions, really, when younger people just don't participate. I think that things like denominations will continue into the future, but they must change the way they do business - instead of having ministry flow through them, they need to facilitate networks of churches to carry out the mission wherever they are. The GCR was supposed to give us that perspective, but it seems to have fizzled out.
3. SBC Name Change - there is a proposal to give the SBC a nickname - Great Commission Baptists - and keep the old SBC name for legal purposes. But, a rose by any other name is still a rose, thorns and all.  One, I don't like nicknames. Two, few will use it and it will die out, I am afraid. And Three, we should not be defined by the Great Commission, but by Christ. Our unity is in the person of Jesus, not a mission that we do together. Which leads me to my next point.

The SBC Is Already Unified

Okay, so we fight a lot. We fight about a lot of different things. It seems that Baptists are always splitting into some camp or another. As this happens, you hear battle cries about being right and standing for truth. You also hear people bemoan the fact that we are arguing. Everyone wants to get their way and see their view reign supreme and we are upset about our lack of unity because we fail to agree on issues.

But, what if we were already unified and all of these disagreements were just dinner table discussions amongst family?  What if it was not up to us at all to maintain unity?

That seems to be what Jesus is praying in John 17:20-23.  He prays that we will be brought to complete unity so the world we know that the Father sent Jesus. Even though we disagee on issues and sometimes argue about how we see things, I will go so far as to say that if anyone is in Christ, he is a New Creation - the old has gone and the new has come. Though we once regarded people from a worldly point of view, we do so no longer (2 Corinthians 5:14-21).  In other words, we should see one another from a spiritual point of view where Christ has already established our unity IN HIM in the heavenlies.  Unity is not something that we create, but instead, it is something that we recognize and live out of since our unity is already established in Christ.  IN CHRIST, we are one. So, even if we disagree, we are still one because we are in Christ together.

So, even if we go to New Orleans and fight and disagree, we are still unified in Christ in the heavenly realms. We cannot get away from one another. But, knowing that should not give us permission to argue, fuss, fight, and try to dominate the other. Rather, knowing that we really are one in Christ despite our differences should actually influence how we treat one another. It should cause us to see our disagreements in perspective. It should cause us to fight with all our energy to live and work together and display the unity that Christ secured for us on the Cross. When we fail to see that, we actually fail to understand what Jesus did for us and we present a fractured witness to the world.

As we vote on a nickname to be called "Great Commission Baptists," which has to do with our witness, we will be simultaneously fighting and dividing over interpretations of theology, which actually harms our witness, undercutting the message we hope to proclaim.

Ironic, isn't it?

 

Why Have the ERLC? Pt. 2

Yesterday evening, I questioned why Southern Baptists have a political lobby group, called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).   In the comment stream, Robert Masters said that the ERLC is able to do things in the political realm that churches cannot do because of tax laws. But, that causes me to ask why churches are paying for a political lobby to represent their interests if we are not able to speak to those things ourselves. Have we just created a go-between? Aren't their other ways to influence the process? If we are saying that the ERLC is the voice for Southern Baptists in Washington, but individual churches are percluded by law to speak for themselves, then is it really ethical to create a go-between that does what we cannot do? I am not saying it is, because I don't know if Robert is right about that. But, it does bring up the question.

Todd Littleton raised an interesting point when he said,

Our structure seems to inhere the perception, if not the reality, that we outsource our missions to the IMB and NAMB. We outsource our ethics and ethical positions to the ERLC. We outsource our theological education and ministry habits to the Seminaries.

Then, when another entity like Lifeway presents statistics consistent with other researchers that our evangelistic efforts are falling short, our ethical actions in public spaces show little difference to those not self-identified as Christian, and our theological positions are all over the map, the church is to blame.

Works perfectly.

This is part of the problem in SBC life, I think. Our local churches keep passing all of our responsibility up the line and we pay someone else to do it. Those people then continually ask the local churches to send more money so we can support "missions" and if we don't send more money to the Cooperative Program, then we don't care about the work of God or something like that. But, what does the ERLC have to do with our mission? Perhaps Bob Cleveland captured the real issue when he asked:

I'd like to know if anyone has collected .. or even measured .. the results produced by the ERLC. We seem to track Baptisms, attendance, and things of that sort. But can we tell whether the ERLC has had any effect?

Aside from making headlines for taking a stand on something or other (or maybe worse), I don't know anything concrete that's been accomplished. Do you?

So, that leads us to the ultimate question: Why have the ERLC? What is it doing that the ethics departments of our seminaries or our state conventions or the Executive Committee or the office of the president of the SBC or any number of pastors or parachurch ministries are not already doing?  Do we need a separate entity to be our voice in Washington? Or, can we have a multitude of voices do the same thing and save over $3 million a year.  I am not saying that the ERLC is not doing some good, but isn't it the same good that is already being done by others or could easily be done by others at a fraction of the cost?

Still wondering why Southern Baptists have the ERLC.

The SBC Founded on the Wrong Side of History

I am working on a book that deals with the history of white evangelicals in the South in regard to racial division and how many of the underlying issues that led them to be racists are still with us today, just manifesting in different forms. These forms are still very destructive and dramatically effect our ability to make disciples, be faithful to Christ, and live missional lives. The conventional wisdom is that the SBC was begun in Augusta, Georgia in 1845 because of missions. In reality, it was because the Baptists in the north would not recognize slaveholders as missionaries and the Baptists in the South did not approve of their decision. They wanted to appoint who they wanted to and thus protect their way of life. So, they started their own movement to recognize and support slaveholding missionaries. But, the flow of history in the 1800's was clearly flowing AGAINST slavery everywhere but in the American South. For a group of Christians to be so out of tune, not only with Scripture, but also with the global flow of history everywhere except in their immediate cultural context could only mean that Baptists in the South (as well as Methodists and Presbyterians) were fully captive to the larger culture that they were members of.

Take a look at this timeline of the abolition of slavery in the 1800's (the founding of the SBC is added in 1845):

1802: The First Consul Napoleon re-introduces slavery on French colonies growing sugarcane.[14]
1803: Denmark-Norway abolition of transatlantic slave trade takes effect 1 January 1803
1804: New Jersey begins a gradual abolition of slavery, freeing future children of slaves.[21] Those born prior to the Act remain enslaved for life
1804: Haiti declares independence and abolishes slavery[16]
1805: Britain: bill for Abolition passed in Commons, rejected in the House of Lords.
1807, 2 March: Thomas Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves into law in the U.S. which took effect January 1, 1808.
1807, 25 March: Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolished slave trading in British Empire. Captains fined £120 per slave transported.
1807: British begin patrols of African coast to arrest slaving vessels. West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) established to suppress slave trading; by 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations[27]
1807: Abolition of serfdom in Prussia through the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms.
1808: In United States, Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect 1 Jan.[28]
1810: In Mexico, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla declares slavery abolished. In the following years, during the Mexican War of Independence, gradually comprehensive steps will end slavery in the new country.
1811: Slave trading made a felony in the British Empire punishable by transportation for British subjects and foreigners.
1811: Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba,[14] Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo
1811: The First National Congress of Chile approves a proposal drafted by Manuel de Salas that declares the Freedom of wombs, which sets free the sons of slaves born on Chilean territory, no matter the conditions of the parents; it prohibited the slave trade and recognized as freedmen those who, passing in transit through Chilean territory, stayed there for six months.
1813: In Argentina, the Law of Wombs was passed on February 2, by the Assembly of Year XIII. The law stated that those born after January 31, 1813 would be granted freedom when contracting matrimony, or on their 16th birthday for women and 20th for men, and upon their manumission would be given land and tools to work it. In 1853, slavery was completely abolished.
1814: Uruguay, before its independence, declares all those born of slaves in their territories are free from that day forward.
1814: Dutch outlaw slave trade.
1815: British pay Portugal £750,000 to cease their trade north of the Equator[29]
1815: Congress of Vienna. 8 Victorious powers declared their opposition to slavery
1816: Serfdom abolished in Estonia.
1817: Serfdom abolished in Courland.
1817: Spain paid £400,000 by British to cease trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo[29]
1817: New York State sets a date of July 4, 1827 to free all its slaves.[30]
1818: Treaty between Britain and Spain to abolish slave trade [31]
1818: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to abolish slave trade [31]
1818: France and Netherlands abolish slave trading
1818: teaty between Britain and Netherlands to abolish slave trade [31]
1819: Serfdom abolished in Livonia.
1820: Mexico formally abolishes slavery with the Plan of Iguala, proposed by Agustín de Iturbide and ratified the following year by him and the Viceroy, Juan O'Donojú
1820: Compromise of 1820 in U.S. prohibits slavery north of a line (36°30')
1821: Gran Colombia (Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama) declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers, sets up program for compensated emancipation [32]
1822: Liberia founded by American Colonization Society (USA) as a colony for emancipated slaves.
1822: Greece abolishes slavery
1823: Chile abolishes slavery[16]
1824: Mexico's new Constitution (1824 Constitution of Mexico) effectively frees existing slaves.
1824: The Federal Republic of Central America abolishes slavery.
1825: Uruguay declares independence from Brazil and prohibits the traffic of slaves from foreign countries.
1827: Treaty between Britain and Sweden to abolish slave trade [31]
1828: New York State abolishes slavery. Children born between 1799 and 1827 are indentured until age 25 (females) or age 28 (males).[33]
1829: Last slaves are freed in Mexico.[16]
1830: Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante orders the abolition of slavery to be implemented also in Mexican Texas. To circumvent the law, many Anglo colonists convert their slaves into "indentured servants for life", and later break away from Mexico - delaying the end of slavery in Texas until 1865.
1830: The first Constitution of Uruguay declares the abolition of slavery.
1831: Bolivia abolishes slavery[16]
1834: The British Slavery Abolition Act comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. Legally frees 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, 40,000 in South Africa. The exceptions, territories controlled by the Honourable East India Company and Ceylon, were liberated in 1843 when they became part of the British Empire. [34]
1835: Treaty between Britain and France to abolish slave trade [31]
1835: Treaty between Britain and Denmark to abolish slave trade [31]
1836: Portugal abolishes transatlantic slave trade
1838, 1 August: Enslaved men, women and children in the British Empire finally became free after a period of forced apprenticeship following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833
1839: British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society founded, now called Anti-Slavery International
1839: Indian indenture system made illegal (reversed in 1842)
1840: Treaty between Britain and Venezuela to abolish slave trade [31]
1841: Quintuple Treaty is signed; Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria agree to suppress slave trade[16]
1842: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to extend the enforcement of the ban on slave trade to Portuguese ships sailing south of the Equator.
1843: Honourable East India Company becomes increasingly controlled by Britain and abolishes slavery in India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843.
1843: Treaty between Britain and Uruguay to suppress slave trade [31]
1843: Treaty between Britain and Mexico to suppress slave trade [31]
1843: Treaty between Britain and Chile to suppress slave trade [31]
1843: Treaty between Britain and Bolivia to abolish slave trade [31]
1845: 36 British Royal Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.
1845: FOUNDING OF THE SBC IN AUGUSTA, GEORGIA TO ALLOW SLAVEHOLDERS TO BE MISSIONARIES
1846: Tunisia abolishes slavery
1847: Ottoman Empire abolishes slave trade from Africa.[35]
1847: Sweden abolishes slavery [36]
1847: Slavery ends in Pennsylvania. Those born before 1780 (fewer than 100 in 1840 Census) are freed.[37]
1848: Slavery abolished in all French and Danish colonies [16][36]
1848: France founds Gabon for settlement of emancipated slaves.
1848: Treaty between Britain and Muscat to suppress slave trade [31]
1849: Treaty between Britain and Persian Gulf states to suppress slave trade [31]
[edit]1850–1899
1850: In the United States, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 requires return of escaped slaves
1851: New Granada (Colombia) abolishes slavery[32]
1852: The Hawaiian Kingdom abolishes kauwa system of serfdom.[38]
1853: Argentina abolishes slavery when promulgating the 1853 Constitution
1854: Peru abolishes slavery[16]
1854: Venezuela abolishes slavery[16][32]
1855: Moldavia partially abolishes slavery.[39]
1856: Wallachia partially abolishes slavery.[39]
1860: Indenture system abolished within British-occupied India.
1861: Russia frees its serfs in the Emancipation reform of 1861.[40]
1862: Treaty between United States and Britain for the suppression of the slave trade (African Slave Trade Treaty Act).[31]
1862: Cuba abolishes slave trade[16]
1863: Slavery abolished in Dutch colonies.[41]
1863: In the United States, Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation which declared slaves in Confederate-controlled areas to be freed. Most slaves in "border states" are freed by state action; separate law freed the slaves in Washington, D.C.
1865: December: U.S. abolishes slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; about 40,000 remaining slaves are affected.[42]
1866: Slavery abolished in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).[43]
1869: Portugal abolishes slavery in the African colonies
1870: U.S. abolishes slavery among Indians in Alaska after purchasing it from Russia in 1867
1871: Brazil Rio Branco Law declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers after 28 September 1871.[44]
1873: Slavery abolished in Puerto Rico
1873: Treaty between Britain and Zanzibar and Madagascar to suppress slave trade [31]
1874: Britain abolishes slavery in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), following its annexation in 1874.[45]
1882: Ottoman firman abolishes all forms of slavery, white or black.[46]
1885: Brazil passes Sexagenarian Law freeing all slaves over the age of 60.
1886: Slavery abolished in Cuba[16]
1888: Brazil passes Golden Law, abolishing slavery without indemnities to slaveowners or aid to newly freed slaves.[47]
1890: Brussels Conference Act – a collection of anti-slavery measures to put an end to the slave trade on land and sea especially in the Congo Basin, the Ottoman Empire and the East African coast
1894: Korea abolishes slavery[48]
1896: France abolishes slavery in Madagascar
1897: Zanzibar abolishes slavery[49] following its becoming a British protectorate.
[edit]1900–today
1902: Ethiopian Empire abolishes slavery (though it was not legally and officially abolished by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1942)
1906: China formally abolishes slavery effective 31 January 1910, when all adult slaves were converted into hired labourers and the young were freed upon reaching age 25.[13]
1912: Siam (Thailand), formally abolishes all slavery. The act of selling a person into slavery was abolished in 1897 but slavery itself was not outlawed at that time.[50]

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

So, the year before TUNISIA abolishes slavery, the SBC is formed to affirm the "right" of Christian missionaries to own slaves and take them with them on the mission field. The SBC started so slaveholders who wanted to be missionaries could take their slaves with them while they went and preached the gospel to Native Americans. The whole thing seems absurd now, even laughable, if it were not true. But, this timeline demonstrates well how out of step Southern Baptists were with world opinion on the issue. It is not as if they were ignorant of abolition movements. They knew all about them and patently rejected them.

I know that many in the SBC are embarrassed over this history and abhor it. I am not trying to pile on here. But, this is informative, especially when we see almost wholesale support for the Secession and the resulting Civil War just 15 years later by Baptists and even the adoption of a Theology of the Lost Cause by many after the war. The implications of being this wrong in relation to the larger culture in the South are quite serious and have not been adequately dealt with in my opinion.

In light of this, I wonder how we might be getting things wrong now?

While Some Churches Cancel Christmas Sunday Services, Christ Remains a Scandal

Christmas Day is on a Sunday this year, and just like in 2005, we hearing about churches cancelling their Sunday services because it is Christmas and they want to free people up to be with their families. I understand that the secular version of Christmas is about family and friends and gift giving and what not, and I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that - those things are worth celebrating and Christians should celebrate them too. But, the Christian version of Christmas is obviously about Jesus and it just seems like a big cave to the secular nature of the holiday for churches to cancel their weekly Sunday worship service because it happens to also be Christmas Day.

Of course, the vast majority of churches ARE having worship on Sunday, but it is the ones that aren't that are attracting attention. Many of the churches that are not having worship are REALLY large - like of the 10,000 to 20,000 members variety. I say something about this here not to cast judgment on other churches (admittedly, I do not know every reason why every church cancels worship on a Sunday). But, since the megachurches usually set the trends for the rest of Evangelical Christianity (what the megas do one year, others seem to do in following years thinking that if the big churches do it it must be a good thing), I think that it is worth considering if this is the best approach.

My view is that it is better for churches to go ahead and have worship on Sunday (radical, I know), even if, perhaps ESPECIALLY if, that Sunday happens to be Christmas Day.  Christmas is the day that Christians have chosen to celebrate the birth of Christ. It is when we celebrate the Incarnation, when God put on flesh and made His dwelling among us, when Jesus

Who, being in very nature God,
   did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷ but made himself nothing,
   taking the very nature of a servant,
   being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to death—
      even death on a cross!   (Phil. 2:6-8)

Jesus went through a great deal to be our Savior, including being born very, very small, as a human baby, to live among us and take our sins upon Himself and die so that our sins would die with Him and raise from the dead to give new life to all who believe in Him.  Worshiping Christ with the church on the day that we set aside to honor His birth, especially when that day is a Sunday, the day each week that we gather for worship to celebrate the Resurrection, seems like the appropriate thing to do.

It is not my intention to reduce our relationship with Christ to attendance at a worship service on a certain day. Obviously, that would be a mistake. I also do not take aim at individuals or families who, for different reasons, are genuinely not able to be in worship on Sunday - Christmas Day. I am not anyone's judge and do not intend to decide in every case whether an individual or family should or even could attend worship on Sunday. But, I do find it ironic that churches are cancelling their worship services on Sunday. Why would you cancel outright?  Maybe a reduced, scaled down worship service would be appropriate. Worship in church on Christmas used to be one of the biggest days of the year. Now, we are cancelling services because some pastors/leaders say that it is better to stay home with our families and enjoy the day. What if there are even better ways to celebrate than spending the entire day immersed in consumer electronics, wrapping paper, and rich food?  What if being in God's presence with the Body of Christ was actually better?

No, I don't think that you are going to hell if your church cancels worship on Christmas. But, I do think that it sends a message, as a church, about what your priorities are, and that is important too. I will not be looking around my church to see who is there or who isn't and judging anyone. I have no idea what each situation is and why people come and why they don't. But, I will worship God with whoever does come and thank Him for Jesus' birth and life and death and resurrection, as we do every Sunday as a worshipping community of Christ.

I know that some might say that I should not talk about this, that it is better to live and let live and not to make a big deal out of what others do. I am supposed to be positive all the time, especially at Christmas. Ok. But, I also know that Christ is a scandal, a stumbling block, and even an inconvenience. He messes with our traditions, customs, and cultural practices. He calls us to reorient around Him, not the other way around, and perhaps this seems strange to us. But, we are in good company if it does. 1 Corinthians 1:20-25 says, 

²⁰ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

We live in a country with complete freedom to worship how we choose and that can sometimes be a mixed blessing when choices are made according to what we prefer or what seems easiest to us. Everything is very convenient for us. We have air conditioning and heat and automobiles and comfortable seats and nice sound systems and messages tailored for us that are not too long with video and pastors who are entertaining and relevant and coffee and donuts and good friends and greeters and smiling faces and nothing that would make us uncomfortable. And, we have constructed a religion that does not really require us to sacrifice anything at all because it is all so wonderful and easy and hey, let's just spend time with our families at home in our pajamas and I'm sure that Jesus is okay with that.  Maybe He is and I've got it all wrong. Maybe it doesn't matter to God if we cancel worship on Sunday because it is Christmas Day. Maybe God doesn't care if we celebrate Christmas at all. I don't know. I'm not trying to speak for God here. But, it just strikes me as strange, odd even, that those who are known by the name of Christ, as Christ-followers, would be ones who find it too inconvenient to worship Christ together on the day we celebrate His birth.

It just seems to me, that if we are Christians and if we are going to do a bunch of Christmas stuff because it is the time that we celebrate the birth of Christ and we say that Jesus is the "Reason for the Season," that it is contradictory to cancel worship on Sunday because it happens to be Christmas Day and we are used to having that day off.  We only get a chance to have worship on Christmas day once every 6-8 years. Maybe instead of seeing it as an inconvenience, we could see it as a great blessing - something our children will remember and be thankful for. Perhaps we should see it as a chance to make a prophetic statement about what we value most - that we are people who orient our lives around Christ and the worship of the Saints together.

At the time of Christ's birth, there was no room for Him in the Inn and he was born in a stable among the animals. Let us make room for Christ in the midst of our traditions and festivities so that we can celebrate Him with the Body of Christ, His family, the children of God. Let us reorient around Christ, even at, no especially at Christmas.

"Let every heart prepare Him room . . ." 

The Apology of Aristides, Fasting, and the Lifestyles of Early Christians

At LIFE Group this past Friday night, we were sitting outside by the fire and talking about prayer and fasting and how the discipline of fasting has a two-fold objective, which is to put away distractions and dependencies to bring us to God and then to give ourselves away to others.  Gabe Posey, a member of our group, brought up The Apology of Aristides, which was a 2nd century writing by the Athenian philosopher, Aristides, that he delivered to Emperor Hadrian as a defense of Christianity.  I had never heard of this, so I asked him to send it to me, which he did.  This is really interesting:

But the Christians, O King, while they went about and made search, have found the truth; and as we learned from their writings, they have come nearer to truth and genuine knowledge than the rest of the nations. For they know and trust in God, the Creator of heaven and of earth, in whom and from whom are all things, to whom there is no other god as companion, from whom they received commandments which they engraved upon their minds and observe in hope and expectation of the world which is to come. Wherefore they do not commit adultery nor fornication, nor bear false witness, nor embezzle what is held in pledge, nor covet what is not theirs. They honour father and mother, and show kindness to those near to them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols (made) in the image of man; and whatsoever they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others; and of the food which is consecrated to idols they do not eat, for they are pure. And their oppressors they appease (lit: comfort) and make them their friends; they do good to their enemies; and their women, O King, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest; and their men keep themselves from every unlawful union and from all uncleanness, in the hope of a recompense to come in the other world. Further, if one or other of them have bondmen and bondwomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother; for they do not call them brethren after the flesh, but brethren after the spirit and in God. And whenever one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them according to his ability gives heed to him and carefully sees to his burial. And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him they set him free.

And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them.

Every morning and every hour they give thanks and praise to God for His loving-kindnesses toward them; and for their food and their drink they offer thanksgiving to Him. And if any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another near. And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God; and if moreover it happen to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. And further if they see that any one of them dies in his ungodliness or in his sins, for him they grieve bitterly, and sorrow as for one who goes to meet his doom.

This gives us a great picture of the lifestyles of the early Christians. Apparently, they were dramatically different from the pagans around them. What I find of particular interest here is the statement above in bold that says that if there were any who were poor and needy among them who had no food, others would fast for two or three days to supply what was lacking in the poor in their midst.  Those who had food would sacrifice for those who did not.  This goes along with the injunctions about true, Biblical fasting in Isaiah 58:6-9.

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
   and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
   and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
   and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
   and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
   and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
   you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

The perspective of the early Christians was that their life was not their own and that they were to sacrifice for one another. May we have the same perspective.

 

Why Racial Division in the SBC Is a Gospel Issue (#sbc2011)

Supposedly, the SBC meeting in Phoenix will issue a new declaration on racial discrimination within the Convention that will be multifaceted. This is really important and I am glad that my denomination is continuing to see this as a gospel issue.  Dave Miller at SBC Voices explains how he has pushed for this and is excited to see what the SBC is doing here.  I responded to Dave with the following comment that I wanted to lift out post here. I think that racial division in the body of Christ is a gospel issue, not just a social issue (but, of course, the two are related).

The last strong vestige of racism in the SBC is found in the realm of “personal preference” and “worship styles.” That has become code-language for, “I don’t want to be with “those” people.” We will be with them if they become just like us, but that then becomes a kind of circumcision-separation in the body of Christ. If they take on our culture, our customs, our vocabulary, our way of doing church, and our music, then we will fellowship with them. That is just like the Judaizers saying that the Gentiles had to be circumcised, obey dietary laws, etc. to be accepted with the people of God. Of course, we don’t make our preferences soteriological like the Judaizers did, but we do make them ecclesiological and even missiological, and if you understand the implications of the gospel in Ephesians 2:11-22, Christ is our peace and tears down the dividing wall – there is neither Jew, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, male, or female. We are all one in Christ. So, that Oneness must be our priority, not our preferences, styles, methods, and approaches. All of those divisions are products of the Fall and are erased in Christ.

The only way through this is Agape – Sacrificial Love. If I truly and sacrificially love my black brothers and sisters in Christ, I will recognize that the divisions that we have are all from the institutional and cultural sins of racism, slavery, and segregation – sins that my Baptist ancestors promoted and codified. So, love for God and others requires that I not wait for them to come to me and become like me – rather, it requires that I go to them and identify with them, bringing the Incarnation of Christ into the still-existing broken relationships.

Could the healing of America be found in white, Baptist (and other), Southern Christians going to black, Baptist (and other) Southern Christians and laying down their lives sacrificially to communicate something other than our personal preferences? What if we truly laid down our lives for them in every way – for the health of their churches and communities and their future? What if their concerns became our concerns? What if we did not leave the cities because there were problems, but instead joined together with our black brothers and sisters and pastors and churches to identify with them and to carry their burdens? Might we then see the healing that we so desire. Isaiah 58 seems to say so.

Yes, Dave. This is crucial, but true healing requires much more of us than we can imagine. This is the work that we are doing in Montgomery, AL and it requires every bit of our lives. But, the witness of the Kingdom is at stake and Christ demands it of us.

I sincerely hope that we will see the tearing down of racial divisions in the body of Christ in America in the coming years to the point that we no longer consider a church to be a "white" church or a "black" church, but simply a church made up of followers of Jesus.  May it be.

The Sin Behind the Sin of Racism

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That America still does not exist, although we are much closer to it now than we were when he gave his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, at least in many ways. I grew up in the post-Segregated South, where the legal barrier between blacks and whites had been torn down, but a more invisible barrier still existed. This barrier existed economically and politically, but it was most obvious spiritually.  Many of these barriers still exist and they are almost impossible to deconstruct unless there is heart transformation on all sides.

I have often wondered why racism was/is so prevalent in the American South, a region of the country considered to be the Bible Belt. Why, in a land full of churches, do we still have so many sinful barriers between people that manifest racially, culturally, economically, and socially?  Why is there still so much anger and isolation? Is the Church capable of being a force for good and for healing apart from the occasional Saturday foray to the rescue mission downtown for an hour or two to volunteer? Is there some greater manifestation of what it means to be peacemakers, ministers of reconciliation, and ambassadors for Christ?

All of this brings me back to a central question that I have been pondering for many years:  How Christian was the Segregated South, really? I do not deny the proliferation of churches and "god-talk" that existed. I do not deny that people saw themselves as Christians and I don't even deny that many were truly saved, in the biblical sense. But, how was it possible for the South to be the Bible Belt, yet so clearly dismiss what the Bible said about how people were to be treated? 1 John 3:13-18 says,

¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

 ¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Maybe the reason that white Christians saw no issue with supporting a segregated South was because they did not see blacks as their brothers. If you dehumanize a person, you can get away with not loving them and with seeing injustice happen to them without being affected personally. That is what Nazi Germany did to the Jews. You always dehumanize a person or a group of people to justify treating them with inequality. To dehumanize someone, you strip them of their God-given dignity and you assign them worth based on some outward status or requirement. During segregation/Jim Crow and slavery, worth was assigned to a person based on their skin color.  Elaborate theories were created to justify the inferiority of blacks and people of color all over the world. These theories caused whites to feel superior based on the color of their skin, not the content of their character.  Whites were not finding their identity in who God had created them to be, but rather in a racial identity that they had constructed for themselves.  This was the sin behind the sin of racism:  finding their identity in something other than God.  Once they found it in race, they were able to dehumanize anyone of a different race or ethnicity to justify exalting themselves and oppressing others. They then created a dehumanizing society to support these values. (Photo taken from Dr. Russell Moore's post today)

What Are Christians to Do to Help the Poor?

Our church is sending a team to Haiti next Spring and a lot of our youth are going. We have also been very active in India over the past few years and have also done a good deal in our own community to try and alleviate poverty and give aid to the poor. Jesus commands us to do this (Matt. 25).  Still, it is good to think through how we are to really help the poor and not make things worse. Lots of times, our best efforts can be things that we do to make us feel better instead of things that really provide long-term solutions for long-term problems. Plus, we need to consider what our view of "poor" is.  Economic inequality does not necessarily mean that someone is poor. Compared to Bill Gates, I am very poor. But, my basic needs are met, my quality of life is good, and I do not consider myself to be poor, even though I can in no way match his lifestyle. The presence of wealty people in the world does not mean that everyone else is poor by comparison.

At the same time, if basic needs are not met related to food, water, health, housing, clothing, etc., then we have issues. Becoming a real source of help for the poor in these situations means that we need to think through things and provide real solutions that make a real difference. More money, education, and services can be helpful, but if a dependency mentality is created, it does little long term good. At the same time, if someone is sick, hungry, thirsty, or dying, you don't stand over them and preach about long-term solutions. This is what Jesus was getting at in his parable of the Good Samaritan. You help right then.

I am reading a book called "When Helping Hurts:  How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . And Yourself."  You can join me in reading it if you like.  Here is the website for the book that expands the discussion. I think it might have some good insight on how Christians are to really be involved with the poor and help bring transformation. At least it will initiate some good thoughts and discussion.  Along with Tim Keller's Generous Justice that I am also reading, this focus might be a good way to discipline our minds during the Christmas season, where so much buying/spending/feasting seems to be focused on ourselves.

Another great resource is Walking With the Poor by Bryant Myers.

 

Deacon Ministry, Generous Justice, and Caring for the Poor (Tim Keller)

I just got Tim Keller's latest book, Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just. If it is like the rest of his writings, I am sure that I am going to learn a lot. At the beginning of the book, he talks about his motivation to consider the Biblical view of justice. He recalls how he was greatly affected by the hypocrisy of white Christians in the 1960's when they defended segregation instead of siding with those fighting for justice. He thought that "justice" was a secular concern until he was taught more fully on what the Bible taught about justice and God's concern for the oppressed.

While getting a Doctor of Ministry degree, he was challenged to write his thesis on deacon ministry in the church.  His concept of the role of deacons, God's concern for justice and the poor, and the role of the church in all of this was radically changed.  He says,

Deacons had historically been designated to work with the poor and needy in the community, but over the years this legacy had been lost, and instead they had evolved into janitors and treasurers . . . I did historical research on how church deacons served as the first public social service structure in European cities such as Geneva, Amsterdam, and Glasgow. 

What if deacons in our churches revived the role of being ministers of justice and mercy to the poor and needy in their community?  This happens in some churches, and to a great degree it happens in our church. But, I didn't know that this had been a formal approach to how deacons functioned. Keller is right. In many churches, deacons serve as an administrative council for the church and primarily function as custodians of the church building and grounds. But, what if they led us out in mercy ministry to those in need all over our community?

Gateway has a very vibrant benevolence ministry. We have been privileged to help people in all walks of life, from the sick, to stranded travelers, to those needing food, shelter, and basic provisions. We have helped lift people up from the clutches of poverty and have seen them regain a place in society where they are able to take care of themselves and begin to help others. Our deacons have led this ministry and have prayerfully administered the gifts of God's people to the poor and needy.  In December, our deacons will lead our entire church in our annual multi-event outreach effort called, "A Time to Serve."  We will have 6 or so service oriented, outreach events that enable us to give to others during the holiday season instead of just focusing on ourselves. 

I am really excited to read more of this book. I just wanted to stop and acknowledge the ministry that our deacons do concerning the poor and needy in our community as well as those who are in our church.  It is good to know that they serve in a long, historical tradition of deacons who have been a blessng to others as they reflect the heart of God for the poor. 

It Really Is OK to NOT Be Pro-Muslim

As I watch the continuing furor over the Ground-Zero Mosque in New York City, I am amazed at how many people in America have a problem with people having an opinion. Let me be clear up front: Muslims have a Constitutional right to build a mosque wherever they want. I defend their right to do so and if anyone were truly trying to keep them from building the mosque near Ground Zero through legal means, I would oppose that action. However, I don't have a problem with people thinking that it is a bad idea and that it is insensitive. I also don't have a problem with people defending the Muslims who want to build the mosque. The level of debate in America is at a serious low when we are attacking people for having opinions on things.  This is not a post about whether or not Muslims should build the mosque near Ground Zero. Rather, this is a post about how it really is okay to have a discussion about it without losing our minds.

Let me get my cards out on the table here. I am not pro-Muslim. Why would I be? I am pro-Christian. Of course, Muslims have the right to practice their religion in America and I defend that right. But, I am not an advocate of their religion. I disagree with it. I think that it is absolutely wrong because I believe in absolute truth and the exclusivity of Christ. But, I defend their right to practice their religion and I am not offended that they think that I am an infidel. Do you see the difference?  You can disagree with someone and their religion and actually believe that it is completely wrong while simultaneously defending their right to practice it and valuing them as a person. This is a subtlety lost on most in America today. Liberals are scared to death that if anyone disagrees with anything that they are going to somehow take away the rights of those they disagree with. Conservatives are scared to death that some non-traditional group is going to take over America any moment now. I think that both are wrong. Perhaps it really is possible to disagree with someone or with a belief system vehemently while not desiring to destroy the person or strip them of their rights.

The Effects of the Big Sort: The Polarization of America and the Breakup of the Church

One of the most groundbreaking books that I have read in some time has been Bill Bishop's The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. As someone involved in church leadership and community development approaches, this book is very enlightening.  The main premise of this book, is that primarily since 1965, and especially since 1990, Americans have become increasingly mobile and have been sorting themselves geographically according to their personal preferences and lifestyle choices - not just because of economic necessity. The book is full of statistics to back it up and I have no intention of reprinting them all here. But, what I would like to do is to think through the implications of Bishop's thesis on the Christian life and church leadership over the next several posts.

While this is not a religious book, Bishop devotes chapter 7 (Religion: The Missionary and the Megachurch) to the emergence of the Homogenous Unit Principle in the rise of the megachurch.  The idea presented in this book is that affluence has allowed Americans to do what they want, and what they want to do is to be with people like themselves - even in church.  The more that people are educated and the more resources that they have, the more that they segregate themselves according to their personal preferences. So, you have the rise of cities like San Francisco that has become full of cultural creatives. In 1976, 44 percent of San Franciscans voted for the Republican candidate for president, Gerald Ford. In 2004, only 15 percent voted for George W. Bush. As time has gone by, liberal creatives have pushed out conservative value-oriented voters and those groups have moved to areas where they are able to live with people more like themselves.  These groupings have happened all over the country. People have done this in every walk of life, even in churches, as megachurches have arisen to cater to the desires of people who have similar socio-economic and value orientations.  Just like the denziens of San Francisco move their because of the cultural values, people choose churches based not on theological or denominational distinctives, but because of cultural values.

The more that people gather together with people like themselves in larger groups, the more safety that they can secure, or so the thought goes.  A reviewer on Amazon was nice enough to relay Bishop's interview with Republican strategist Matthew Dowd, who explained the thinking behind the 2004 re-election strategy of George W. Bush:

Dowd understood that "American communities were 'becoming very homogeneous'. He believed that to a large degree, this clustering was defensive, the general reaction to a society, a country, and a world that were largely beyond an individual's control or understanding. For generations, people had used their clubs, their trust in a national government, and long-established religious denominations to make sense of the world. But those old institutions no longer provided a safe harbor. 'What I think has happened,' Dowd told me (Bishop) early in 2005, 'is the general anxiety the country feels is building. We're no longer anchored'." Bishop decodes this further, saying "Unsurpassed prosperity had enriched Americans---and it had loosened long established social moorings. Americans were scrambling to find a secure place, to make a secure place...Most Americans have done that by seeking out(or perhaps gravitating toward) those who share their lifeworlds---made up of old, fundamental differences such as race, class, gender, and age, but also, now more than ever, personal tastes, beliefs, styles, opinions, and values."

So, we are no longer necessarily experiencing "White Flight." Rather, we are experiencing "Middle-Class flight," "Liberal Flight," "Conservative Flight," "Religious Flight," "Educated Flight," etc., etc. People want to be with people like themselves. So, they are moving en masse to communities where they can share the same lifestyle as their neighbors. As Bishop says, "Americans joined communities, churches, and political parties in a manner that was almost tribal."

What are the implications of this for the church?  Is this thesis even true?  As Bishop states in Chapter 7, many used this to appeal to people on the basis of their preferences or lifestyles when it came to the discipline of church growth. The church itself is becoming more tribal as churches form around personal preferences and the place that congregants are in their life. So, you have "niche" churches based on lifestyle choices begin to emerge. Is this a good thing?  Personally, I don't think so. The Body of Christ is not to be divided based on economics, interests, race, or personal preference. We are to be one in Christ, not in our hobbies or political persuasions. But, this clustering is happening faster now than ever. Smaller, community based churches are giving way to larger churches based on the preferences of people.

Bishop's research is also showing that people are not being shaped by their beliefs as much as they are being shaped by their geography, at least eventually. The more that like-minded people cluster together, the more that their beliefs harden and keep them from interacting with others who are different from them.  People are finding their safety and security in an ever-changing world by grouping together with people that they share common lifestyles with and America is becoming ever more polarized.

But, what if there was a community where people different in many ways could come together and exhibit a unity that would be shocking to a world that was breaking apart?  Could it be that Jesus' command for His followers to love one another in a way that the world would know that they were His (John 13:34-35) - could it be that this is exactly what America needs right now?  I think so, and I am going to be exploring this thought more throughout the week. 

Why I Am Now In Favor of the Great Commission Resurgence (#GCR)

Over the past year, Southern Baptists have engaged in a wide ranging discussion about the future of the SBC. This discussion really began back in 2004 when Dr. Jimmy Draper, then president of Lifeway, began to address the obvious exodus of young leaders from the SBC. Then, we had the revolution in Greensboro in 2006 and the emergence of the SBC blogosphere. That is where I entered the discussion and learned far more about the SBC than I ever wanted to know. I was a staunch opponent of the controversial IMB policies that limited missionary appointments on the basis of disagreements regarding tertiary doctrines and also wrote quite a bit about the decline in effectiveness and growth in SBC churches overall. Many SBC leaders were supportive of the bloggers back in those days but did not want to say so publicly. All of that changed with the convention in Indianapolis in 2008 and the election of Johnny Hunt as president of the SBC. Then, last spring, Dr. Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary gave the call for a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) that would bring revival and gospel awakening to Southern Baptist churches across the land. I agreed with what he had to say and signed my name in support of a GCR.

However, I was initially disappointed with the work of the GCR Task Force. It seemed to be dominated by megachurch pastors and lacked a great deal of diversity. Initial reports from the GCRTF focused on denominational restructuring as an answer to what ails us. I (along with others) made the call for a refocus on the local church as the only vital source of renewal (see HERE) and expressed profound disappointment that the majority of real recommendations focused on tinkering with the denominational apparatus (see HERE). Top-down change will never affect the kind of resurgence that Dr. Akin envisioned, and for that, I reluctantly withdrew my support for what seemed to be another attempt at the proverbial reshuffling of the deck chairs on the sinking SBC.  I didn't oppose the GCR because I was a fan of the status quo. Rather, I began to oppose it because it did not go nearly far enough. It seemed to be full of tepid responses and restructuring agencies in a bid to put bigger pieces of a shrinking pie in the hands of those that could be controlled from a central headquarters more directly. That is never the recipe for initiating gospel movement and the whole enterprise seemed as though it was headed for a colossal failure.

Then, the GCRTF came out with the final report on April 26, while our team was in India. I returned the next week and needed some time to read it and get my feet underneath me. I am not going to summarize the report here, as you can read it at the above link, but I will offer a series of observations. Overall, I am supportive of the work that the GCRTF has done and I think that if their recommendations are followed at the local church, association, state convention, and national entity levels, then we will see a great deal of renewal take place. Here are my thoughts:

POSITIVES:

1. Honesty about the problem. The GCR Report honestly deals with many of the struggles facing Southern Baptists today. On average, 63% of money given by Southern Baptists to the Cooperative Program, stays in their own state. You can probably justify that in a lot of ways, but you cannot say that that money is being given to missions as is advertised. There was also a good deal of discussion about the struggle that we are having in reaching people, including our children, with the gospel. You would not have heard this kind of honest discussion a few years ago.
2. Calling for an examination of how we are doing what we have been mandated to do: carry the gospel to every creature under heaven. This is one of the best things about the GCR, in that, it seems to take seriously the call to be about the mandate of Christ in proclaiming the Kingdom and calling people to reconciliation with God.
3. I am glad the "Challenges" section was inserted addressing individual Christians, families, churches, local associations, state conventions, and SBC entities.  I don't agree with everything listed in that section and it is a very simplistic list, but there is not a whole lot more that the Task Force could have inserted into a readable document. Overall, it is a good list of suggestions and it emphasizes the need for a "grass-roots", bottom-up resurgence, which is the only kind that will work in the long run, anyway.

The substance of the report is found toward the end under "Recommendations to the Southern Baptist Convention" and right after the core values expressed. Things like recognizing "Great Commission Giving" instead of just Cooperative Program giving and realignments of NAMB (getting rid of state cooperative agreements to free NAMB to move toward a more focused missional strategy) and the IMB (letting IMB missionaries work in North America) as well as calling on the state conventions to address stewardship - those things are what this is really all about because those are the recommendations that have teeth. Those are the things that state conventions and SBC entities will have to deal with and that is where you will have the most disagreement. People will protect their turf and they will fight for their jobs. They will also fight for the task that was already entrusted to them by their respective boards and state conventions, and I do not begrudge them that. But, the question remains, "How will be best reach North America with the gospel?" Redundancy, bureaucracy, and spending money on ourselves is not the answer. But, also, just assuming that state cooperative agreements are wrong across the board is not the answer either. Maybe Alabama could continue on without a state cooperative agreement with NAMB but can Delaware? Can Minnesota-Wisconsin? No, they cannot. The state cooperative agreements need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

NEGATIVES:

1. In Dr. Akin's initial report, he spoke directly about the issue of racism and racial prejudice in our churches. I believe that racism as an undercurrent that now pops up in the form of "personal preference" is continuing to severely harm our churches, especially in the Deep South. I was glad to see Dr. Akin address this and I was grieved to see it not adequately addressed in the final report. Southern Baptist leaders have a huge blind spot when it comes to this issue and they have exhibited it yet again. Racial Reconciliation through the Cross is not a social issue - it is a gospel imperative (see Ephesians 2:11-22). To leave it out of a document calling for a Great Commission Resurgence, especially considering the past and the present of Southern Baptist churches, is to display a misunderstanding of the gospel itself and the Great Commission, even if it was unintentional. At the very least, there is a misunderstanding as to the severe problem that continues to plague our churches in this area, if not in outright racism and prejudice, then in missional ineffectiveness when it comes to reaching people different from ourselves.
2. The focus on Great Commission Giving is misguided. The GCRTF wants all giving to Southern Baptist entities by churches to be recognized by the SBC, not just giving to the Cooperative Program. While it is good to celebrate all that churches do, this seems to be a push by large churches who do not give a great deal to the CP to be recognized for designated giving. Who cares who gives what? Why are we recognizing and ranking and comparing churches anyway? Give what you feel led to give to and support what God is putting on your heart. If you are afraid that you will miss out on a committee assignment because your church designated gifts, give that to God. There is way too much judging one another by size of church and amount given in the SBC. It is part of our sickness and this recommendation only feeds into that.
3. The missional vision of the SBC that is promoted is "As a convention of churches, our missional vision is to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations."  I don't want to get into semantics here and I do appreciate calling us to a missional vision. But, the idea of "presenting" the gospel to people is part of what our problem is. The gospel is not a presentation. We are not selling Amway products or Tupperware. The gospel is to be proclaimed, preached, demonstrated, and incarnated. It is a way of life and the message of salvation. It is to be lived out as well as proclaimed. I get what they are saying here and I am not trying to split hairs - much of the rest of the report covers this. While I am very much in favor of having a missional vision, if this is the statement that they are wanting us to all adopt, I would spend a little more time on the language. Do we see biblically where we are to "present" the gospel to people? 

I am in favor of the GCR final report because it kicks the can down the road a little further on having the conversation in our churches that we need to have. I don't see how we can go backwards from here. There are a lot of problems with this report and a lot of unanswered questions. But, as I was saying to someone today, I can't make a grocery list without getting something wrong, so I don't expect the 22 members of the GCRTF to get this perfect either. It is quite imperfect. But, Southern Baptists are a very messy convention of churches and our polity is beyond confusing. The Task Force cannot mandate anything to a grouping of autonomous churches, local associations, state conventions, and SBC entities. All that they can do is make suggestions. Many of their suggestions are good. Some are not. They left some things out that I wish desperately that they would have covered. But, they put some things in that have not been adequately talked about much in the past. Overall, while it is an imperfect document, it advances the missional conversation and I am certain that it will work to dislodge the inertia of varying groups of Baptists and many local churches who will read over this and begin to consider how to carry some of it out. For that I am glad.

In Southern Baptist life, change does not come overnight. But, when you look at where we were in 2004 and in 2006 as many young, blogging Baptists made their way to Greensboro, NC for the convention that year, we have clearly come a long way. Are we headed in the right direction? In some ways, yes. In other ways, I don't know how much of the old system we can ultimately save, or even if we should. Some will use parts of this for their own gain, be certain of that. Some entities will grow stronger and more powerful at the expense of others just as local churches have been doing for some time now. God works all of that out and I am thankful that it is not for me to sort out sincere from the selfish. But, there will always be local churches that are striving to take the gospel seriously and take it to the ends of the earth. That is the movement that I want to be a part of, and if the GCR can help in some small way with that, I am supportive of it.

How To Have a Real #GCR

So, what about the local church? The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has given us recommendations for how we are to live Christlike lives and for how some of our entities can be restructured to increased efficiency, but we have not heard very much about what the local church can do to bring about a GCR. Southern Baptists say a lot about how the local church is at the center of God's activity in the world and how the SBC exists to assist the local church in their mission, but we don't see a lot of that. Instead, we see cooperation defined as the local church sending money and people up the line to the state conventions and national entities, effectively farming out to parachurch organizations the mission that God primarily gave to the local church. No wonder we have lost our vision! We are not working according to the design that God intiated. But, what if we did? Here are some concrete proposals that the GCRTF could put forward that would encourage us all and could possibly lead to a real Great Commission Resurgence:

1. Start their thinking with the local church in mind. The GCRTF started with a top-down approach. They got things backwards. If they had started with the local church and worked their way up, they would be in a much better spot right now. But, they went the way that the SBC has been going for the last 60 years and they took a top-down approach.
2. Through state conventions and local associations, identify churches that are already carrying out the axioms for a Great Commission Resurgence found HERE.  Who is already doing the work correctly? Where is God moving? What examples can we hold up to the rest of the SBC locally and nationally? I asked a DOM friend of mine about this and he said that he could think of 10-12 churches in his association that were doing really well in this regard. Let them lead us. Instead of trying to get something going from scratch, we accurately recognize that God is at work in a powerful way in many SBC churches across America. Why can't they lead the denomination?
3. Encourage those churches to partner with a couple of other churches that might be struggling, but who are willing. Again, the state conventions and local assocations are critical in identifying these churches and pastors and in helping to facilitate the connections. Have pastoral and lay leadership meet together in prayer and mutual submission and ask what they could do together locally and globally to impact lostness. How could they help one another? How could they pray for each other? What encouragement could the thriving church share with the churches that are struggling and vice versa?
4. In these clusters of 3-5 churches, introduce the concepts of partnering for global missions involvement. Bring in someone from the IMB that would meet with them and help facilitate engagement with an area overseas that could use their prayer and support. Plan a joint mission trip and connect them with a missionary overseas.
5. Also, introduce the concept of church planting. Have someone from the state convention or NAMB talk with them about helping to support a church plant in an area of need. Prayer, finances, people, and support could be brought out to engage in this work.  Perhaps several clusters could work together. NAMB, state convention personnel, and church planter strategists could help facilitate this, but you still have primary local church involvement.
6. In these clusters of churches, introduce the concept of local community transformation. The state convention and primarily the local association can play a vital role in this. What if 3-5 local churches addressed areas of a community that were struggling? What if they identified the darkest problems in their community and they let their light shine tangibly in some kind of way? I know that God would lead them.
7. As these clusters of 3-5 local churches work together on global missions in some way, domestic church planting, and community transformation, they will have to be praying and seeking God. They will have to be thinking about others.  This will bring renewal to the local congregation as they personally engage in the mission that God has called them to. Pastors will be encouraging other pastors. Lay people will be meeting together to plan, work, and encourage one another. Churches will not compete with one another, but rather, they will truly cooperate. Call in the state conventions, local association, and NAMB and the IMB to help resource all of this. Then, you truly have SBC entities resourcing the local church.
8. Use the best aspects of SBC initiatives like the Acts 1:8 Challenge and GPS in these clusters of churches for training and goal setting. The IMB has some really good initiatives for local church involvement that are not widely known. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The SBC has been tinkering with these ideas for many years now. Let's bring them out convention-wide and really apply them to local church life.
9. As these clusters become effective in engaging in God's mission both locally and globally, begin to bring more churches into new clusters. As churches that were once struggling begin to strengthen, bring in other churches that are willing to engage. Keep starting the process over again. Create church partnership clusters in pioneer regions on the West Coast and in the Northeast and connect them with clusters in the Southeast. Work to get every missionary adopted by a cluster. Identify 100 target areas for church planting and get clusters to partner with church planter strategists in those areas to fund church plants. Connect with our seminaries to train church planters that are ready to partner with a cluster to plant a church in the target area. Keep encouraging the spread of this like a virus until every SBC church that is willing to engage in this does.
10. Call on our seminaries and Lifeway to project theological education by extension into local associtation and cluster groups all over the U.S. via the internet. Decentralize seminary training so that it is more effectively serving the misson of the local church as they engage in this mission.

Of course, you start with the willing and those who are already working effectively. The GCRTF will say that they cannot mandate anything to the local church. That is true. But, NAMB is autonomous as well, and that hasn't stopped them from completely reorganizing NAMB in their recommendations. If the GCRTF used their SBC-given platform to put forward a plan like this, many local associations and state conventions would pick it up and begin to do it. If you had even 100 clusters of 3-5 churches form and carryout this plan together, that is 300-500 SBC church engaging in this local and global mission in an exponential way because they would be working together and sharing resources. You don't destroy the current structure of the SBC, but rather, you use it help initiate a movement of churches engaging in the Mission of God. As more and more churches engage in this, the things that do not facilitate the movement begin to lose importance and also lose funding. Churches continue to give to the CP because money is needed for church planters and consultants from the state conventions, local associations, NAMB, and the IMB, along with the missionaries/church planters needed to carry out the plans directly. So, you are not destroying the structure, but rather, you are repositioning it and maximizing its effectiveness by creating exponential engagement.

The argument will be that churches won't do this. I think that mine would. I could probably come up with a list of large and small churches in Alabama who would do something like this. What if cooperation actually meant more than sending a check to the CP, but we really did cooperate on a church-to-church basis? What if the church acted as the missionary and initated global and local work in cooperation with a few other churches doing the same thing? Does anyone think that excitement, spiritual life and passion, and the power of God would not spread? Does anyone think that the nations would not be impacted?

The problem in the SBC is not primarily a funding crisis. It is a vision crisis. Every local church has to go it alone. What if we partnered and networked a bit? What if the entities of the SBC lined up BEHIND the local church and helped us? What if the church really did become the frontlines of SBC mission work and every member of every SBC church was considered a missionary because they were directly engaging in the mission of God? What if we flipped everything around?

We might end up with a real GCR afterall. 

Similarities Between Health Care Reform and the #GCR of Southern Baptists

America is bracing for a vote this weekend on Health Care Reform. No one really knows what is in the bill and the entire process is complicated beyond belief. If you ask most Americans the question, "Do we need health care reform?", most people would say yes. I think that we need some level of reform to a system that sees premiums continue to go up and up while coverage continues to go down. It is not good for small businesses or for families to continue to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance that still does not cover everything, does not accept prior conditions, and that is often not transferrable. Who doesn't think that the system needs fixing on some level while medical costs continue to skyrocket? I have yet to meet anyone.

However, just because you think that the system needs attention because of skyrocketing costs does not mean that you accept the proposals that the Democrats are putting forward. They seem to have taken the fact that most Americans want some level of health care reform to mean that Americans want what they are putting forward, and if they don't, well, they just don't know what's good for them.  I am not going to debate health care reform here. The problem with the bill (whatever it is), is that it is impossible for people to actually know what it says or what it means. Even members of Congress do not fully know what they are voting for or against. The cable news pundits pick up on one detail and say that that is what health care reform is all about. Then, opposing pundits pick up on another detail and try to persuade the public based on their position. In reality, both sides might be right and both sides might be wrong. It is impossible to tell because the attempt at reform is complicated to the point of making it unintelligible. Still, we are going to have a vote and no matter how you feel about the particulars, President Obama and the Democrats are making this about whether or not you want health care reform, which completely misses the point, because you might actually want health care reform, but you don't want THIS kind of health care reform. Republicans did the same thing on the Iraq War, by the way, by appealing to American's desire to be protected from terrorists, so I am not being partisan here.

Which brings me to the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) among Southern Baptists. Few would disagree with the fact that our churches, state conventions, and denominational entities are in trouble. Few would argue that declining baptism rates and giving is not a sign of difficult times ahead. Former SBC president Frank Page predicted that around 20,000 SBC churches would close their doors in the next couple of decades if we keep going the way that we are going because of the graying of our denomination (we currently have around 45,000 churches). Everyone agrees that there is a crisis going on. Who would argue that at this point?

So, if you ask the average Southern Baptist pastor or layperson, "Do we need a Great Commission Resurgence?", is anyone really going to say no? Would anyone argue that we need a resurgence of a passion for the lost and the mission of God in our churches? That would be foolish. But, just because we agree that we need a GCR, that doesn't mean that we agree on what a GCR should look like. I think that in this situation, taking a top-down approach to the renewal of the SBC does more harm than good.  The changes that have been proposed end up falling far short of what is needed and valuable capital and good will that has been built up through calling for reform is going to be wasted.  What happens in 5-10 years when we find ourselves in the same situation? Will we call for another GCR? Any GCR that does not begin with gospel renewal in the local church is ultimately going to wash out far short of what anyone would consider a success. If we say that we are incapable of bringing renewal to local churches and all that we can do is tinker with denominational entities, then that is the crux of our problem and sidestepping it doesn't change a thing.

When Southern Baptists meet in Orlando in June, the GCR (whatever it is) will be put forward before the delegates as a vote for the Great Commission itself. Watch the speeches given in support of it. "Do you believe in the Great Commission? Good, I do too. Vote for this. If you vote against it, you are voting AGAINST the Great Commission." That is not entirely honest, but it is what will happen and it will likely pass no matter what the GCR actually is because the right people will say that this is about the Great Commission and the masses will vote on the basis of which personality is for or against it.  That is how things work at SBC Annual Meetings and people know it.

Here is the truth: Unless we see real grass-roots gospel renewal in our churches, no amount of denominational tinkering is going to make a difference. As a matter of fact, it might make matters worse because it will give the illusion of change when our churches continue to decline.  Does that mean that we can't be more efficient on a national level? Of course not. There are always things that we can do to make the mission that God has called us to more accessible for each of us. But, unless local churches begin to lead the way, or unless denominational entities begin to really see themselves as servants to the local church, then we will not see a GCR just like current attempts at health care reform are unlikely to make the difference that people really want to see nationally.  Ironically, we already have a system in place in our state conventions and local associations that we can work through to try and bring about gospel renewal in our churches. Creating more systems will do little. The main problem is not our organization (although there is much that could be better about it). The main problem is that we need a heart change in our desire to follow Jesus instead of our own desires. Restructuring without a corresponding heart change will only move problems around to different places while ultimately leaving us in the same position as we started. 

So, how do you effect gospel renewal in local churches from a denominational perspective? What could the GCR Task Force have done if they had been thinking grassroots instead of top-down? How could state conventions and local associations play a vital role in this instead of being seen as competitors? The GCR took the microphone last year and had the chance to really call for sweeping change that almost everyone would have bought into, but they went for the easier approach of forced reorganization. What if they had done it differently?

I'll talk about what those changes could have looked like in a future post, but if you want a preview, read what I wrote last August at Missioscapes.com.