SBC further separates itself from the Body

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In a couple of posts today on Theoblogical.Net , I lament a futher sign of the SBC becoming an “island to itself” , moving further from its heyday as a community of diversity. Of course, as the posts suggests, this (“diversity”) is anathema to them, and precisely what they can’t seem to handle, and taking further steps every year to assure that such “infidel notions” are rejected.

4 Replies to “SBC further separates itself from the Body”

  1. Chris Capoccia

    …further from its heyday as a community of diversity.

    What does diversity have to do with true Christianity?  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)  This is not the only passage that speaks of the gospel and the godly life as a singular path with many false ways that lead elswhere.

    Paul rejects this move to diversity as well:

    I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all.  Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!  Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.  (Galatians 1:6–10)

    A Christian should not be involved in ministries with unbelievers.

    Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. … “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.  Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.  I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (II Corinthians 6:14, 17–18)

    Diversity is just a new name for an old desire.  Even Spurgeon had a few words to say about it in 1888:

    Why Should The New Religionists And Believers Wish To Be Together?  To this hour, I must confess that I do not understand the action of either side in this dispute, if viewed in the white light of logic.  Why should they wish to be together?  Those who wish for the illimitable fellowship of men of every shade of belief or doubt would be all the freer for the absence of those stubborn evangelicals who have cost them so many battles.  The brethren, on the other hand, who have a doctrinal faith, and prize it, must have learned by this time that whatever terms may be patched up, there is no spiritual oneness between themselves and the new religionists.  They must also have felt that the very endeavor to make a contact which will tacitly be understood in two senses is far from being an ennobling and purifying exercise to either party.

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  3. Dale Lature

    Chris,

    TRUE Christianity has EVERYTHING to do with diversity. Your “proof-texts” have been used for years to justify what I believe Jesus would be unloving; which is: view others as endowed with the image of God. The “I am the way” passage I believe to be true. But your application of that is simply a distortion. Jesus’ WAY is not a belief system, it is a way of LIFE. Southern Baptists have made it into a doctrine, and a doctrine that is REQUIRED to be interpreted AS THE PRESENT LEADERSHIP has decided it should be interpreted. This to me is no longer worthy to be called Baptist. They have replaced the call of the individual to respond to God’s call with a mandate to interpret scripture in ONE PARTICULAR and , I might add, extremely CULTURALLY-bound way.

    The use of the passage about unequally yoked with unbelievers is simply talking about marriage, it is not a prohibition against relating to those who differ from us theologically. To interpret it as encouraging us to “pack up our bags and go home” is simply to justify a narrow, theologically bigoted approach. This has been done for centuries by people who don’t wish to be faced with the suggestion that maybe they’ve MISUNDERSTOOD God, or do not wish to face the fact that their lifestyle has forsaken some of the values Jesus taught (one for instance, how the Good Samaritan, an infidel and pagan in those days, actually is theone who had compassion as opposed to the “True believers” of the day (the ones who CALLED THEMSELVES” true believers.)

    Anyway, all of this probably makes very little sense to you, but all I can do is say that you miss out on a lot of what the Christian community, and even the larger Baptist community brings to the table.

    Dale

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