Dr. Chuck Kelley is President and Professor of Evangelism at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary



This is the fourth of a four part series of articles taken from Dr. Kelley’s presentation on the New Methodists. In part one, he walked us through the history of evangelism in the SBC. In part two, he examined our current state of evangelism. In the third part, he explained where we’ve gone wrong. And in this final installment, Dr. Kelley presents a way to fix the problem.

Part 4: What Do We Have to Do to Fix Things?

What I have come to realize is that also included in our evangelistic process was a very aggressive discipleship process. Here is a snapshot of some of the elements of the discipleship process that were found in the typical Southern Baptist church of any size and location.

• A Sunday night program that included small group discipleship training for all ages of the church and an evening service.
• Each January there was a four to six day Bible conference teaching one book of the Bible to all ages.
• At least once and often more frequently there were special events called study courses to train every age group in some aspect of Baptist and church life.
• In addition there was a weekly missions training program for young boys and girls, along with youth camp and children’s camp in the summer. Plus more.

Though often criticized for overemphasizing conversion, in reality the opposite is true.

In the era of our greatest evangelistic growth, typical SBC churches had more discipleship activities than evangelistic activities. Aggressive evangelism was matched by aggressive discipleship. We were disciplistic. That is another one of my words. By it I mean an evangelistic discipleship that continually seeks to incorporate both evangelism and discipleship at the same time.

When did this emphasis on aggressive discipleship began to fade? During the late sixties.

When did our evangelistic fruitfulness began to fade? During the seventies.

When our baptismal numbers started to weaken, we intensified our focus on evangelistic strategies and methods. Hear this from one who is an evangelist by calling. We should have paid more attention to our discipleship process. Apparently the biblical worldview that unconsciously inspired doing church like a farm in SBC life is like the baton for the USA Men’s relay team in the Beijing Olympics.

You are looking at a picture of some the fastest sprinters we have ever had, but all their speed and talent meant nothing, because the baton fell between them.

Earlier Southern Baptists did not devise an intentional plan as a Convention on how to do church evangelistically in order to reach people.

Our churches worked out an evangelistic discipleship that wove the process of sowing and reaping, reaching and teaching into ordinary process of church life. As time went by and the world changed, that biblical worldview inspiring evangelistic discipleship dropped between SBC generations.  When we did make an SBC plan for evangelism, we planned to improve the harvest component of our Baptist farm, not the integrated process. As time has gone by, we neither maintained nor reinvented the process that made us so fruitful in earlier days. Time had its impact. Now others may be running the race, but we are still trying to get a fresh grip on the baton of a discipl-istic worldview.

To put it another way, we put so much emphasis on how our way of doing church affected the lost, we failed to notice how it was affecting the saved. Changes and innovations have been added to make the church more welcoming to the lost and unchurched in many of our churches, but little has been done to improve the way we inspire evangelistic discipleship and make it more desirable to believers in most of our churches.

Upon reflection, the most significant and influential death in the modern history of the Southern Baptist Convention was the death of our discipleship process. I am talking about the death of a discipleship process, not a particular discipleship training program. The defining characteristic of Southern Baptists at our best was being discipl-istic, having a passionate evangelistic discipleship. But we refused to let go of one in order to pursue the other. When we loosened our grip on one to strengthen the other, we ultimately weakened both dramatically.

Today, we do not know who we are. The world does not know who we are. Our lost friends and neighbors do not know who we are. In the New Testament world believers lived differently than their neighbors. That is how they came to be called Christians, which was a term of derision, not respect. Our problem is not that more of us don’t witness to our neighbors. Our problem is that more of us do not look like and live like Jesus.

If we do not produce children, youth, and adults who live out a biblical worldview, no strategy for doing church will make us salt and light in the world. Southern Baptists are not losing our voice. We are losing the distinctiveness of our voice in today’s culture. We are blending in more than we are standing out.

Here is the most important lesson. Aggressive evangelism without aggressive discipleship will eventually undo itself. The most crucial issue in SBC evangelism today is reinventing a process to bring our children, youth, and adults to spiritual maturity in an evangelistic way.

We need discipl-istic churches! Baptist believers must be taught how to be the distinctive presence of Christ in the culture. We must be the salt our neighbors cannot fail to taste; the light the world around us cannot fail to see. As Jesus Himself noted in Matthew 5:13-14, salt that is not salty is not good for anything but throwing out. Light that is under a bushel is useless.

Is there more to SBC problems than this? Yes! But there is at least this. We are becoming the New Methodists. In 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 we read, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” But don’t stop there.

Keep reading!

The Lord goes on to say, “But if you turn aside … Then I will pluck you up from my land … and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight ….”

The picture you are seeing is the Western Wall of the temple mount in Jerusalem, also called the wailing wall. The large stones at the base of the wall are all that is left of God’s temple during the time of Jesus. The crowds you see are there every day. Jews and pilgrims from all over the world come to see and weep over what was lost and pray that one day all will be restored.

Here is what we know stated as simply as I know how to state it.

In times past God has worked through our Southern Baptist churches in a mighty way. In times present God is not working in a mighty way through our churches. How are you going to respond to this? How am I going to respond to this? If we as a people do not repent now, only one question remains: To what wall will our children return to weep and remember the glory that was the SBC?

Dr. Chuck Kelley is President and Professor of Evangelism at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary



This is the third of a four part series of articles taken from Dr. Kelley’s presentation on the New Methodists. In part one, he walked us through the history of evangelism in the SBC. In part two, he examined our current state of evangelism. In this third part, he explains where we’ve gone wrong. And in the final installment, Dr. Kelley will present a way to fix the problem.

Part 3: What Has Gone Wrong?

Discipleship is the crucial issue. The spiritual state of the farmer (our churches and leadership), not the abundance of the harvest is the root of problems in SBC evangelism. At the end of the day, this is the hard truth staring at me. The best question then, is: What is wrong with us?

First, We are not anointed. The conversion of a soul to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. The stirring of a church and community in revival and awakening is a work of the Holy Spirit. Neither of these works of the Spirit are typical in SBC churches today. We are not anointed – that “we” would be you, me and all of us at work in places with little evidence of the activity of the Holy Spirit. We are so not anointed we have come to accept not being anointed as normal.

Second, we have been “atom”ized. Scientists tell us that what looks like a solid wood pulpit is actually a composition of small particles called atoms. Those atoms are actually composed of even smaller particles, which are composed of even smaller particles. Thinking about atomic particles can make one forget that whatever its composition, this pulpit does function as a single large and rather solid-feeling piece of wood. At the end of the day it is a pulpit, after all.

Many have become so focused on discovering a method that works; they fail to realize an integrated process is far more important than any one method that is a part of that process. You cannot separate sowing and reaping. One is never more important than the other. To focus on particular methods rather than an integrated process is a dead end.

More importantly, Southern Baptists are becoming the new Methodists.

I love Methodists! They played a key role in the First and Second Great Awakenings. Their concept of a circuit riding preacher was a brilliant strategy for the circumstances of the day. With it they were able to multiply church starts faster than they multiplied church pastors, enabling them to evangelize the American Frontier in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They made holy living a core value and were called Methodists because they went about it so systematically and methodically.

Much of what Southern Baptists know about evangelistic harvesting we learned from Methodists. Many have observed Methodists and Baptists and noticed their kinship. I love what a Presbyterian minister in the movie “A River Runs Through It” would tell his sons about Methodists: “Methodists are just Baptists who can read.”

The Methodists of today, however, have changed much through the years. Their efforts in evangelism and missions have greatly diminished. The passion for holy living has been replaced by behavior blending with the culture. One of their greatest theological fights is over the normalcy of homosexuality. Most surprising, they have set new records for the fastest loss of membership in the history of the church in America. Having observed these changes in Methodism, I find myself admitting today that we are following in their footsteps. Southern Baptists are the New Methodists.

In what ways are we similar?

Universalism is settling into our pews as more and more Southern Baptists believe and behave as though they believe a personal relationship with Christ is not necessary for one to be right with God.

Tolerance is beginning to overtake conviction as growing numbers, particularly of younger Southern Baptists, are less comfortable with taking a firm stance on moral or doctrinal issues.

More importantly, our behavior, the way we live our lives, is blending more and more with our culture. We are growing ever less distinct and recognizable in the crowd of our nation’s population.

It is becoming as easy to get drunk at a Baptist wedding as any other kind of wedding. We go to the same movies, watch the same TV shows, and get comfortable using the same coarse language our neighbors use. It is as likely for a Baptist kid to choose a school or community soccer tournament over church as any other kid in the neighborhood.

It is not a coincidence that we are also moving from growth to plateau to decline in the membership of our churches. Since 1983 I have been saying seventy percent of our churches are plateaued or declining. If we apply the traditional measurement of growth to the 2007 SBC church statistics, the number of growing churches is about the same as it has been for a long time, the number of plateaued churches is smaller, and the number of declining churches is larger.

If we add minimal evangelistic standards to the way we measure church growth, the shift is even more dramatic. The most recent study of SBC churches . . . recording a ten percent or more increase of membership over a five year period indicates 30.3 percent of our churches are growing. If we add the requirement of at least one baptism in the first and fifth year of the study to those 30.3 percent of growing churches, only 23.5 percent would still qualify as growing. If we add an additional requirement for growing churches to have a ratio of at least one baptism per 35 members, the percentage of growing churches drops to only 11.9 percent. By comparison, from 1945 to 1955 the ratio of baptisms per member for the whole SBC was in the twenties.

To summarize, using minimal evangelistic standards instead of membership growth alone reveals only 11.9  percent of SBC churches are growing today. To quote a different ancient Hebrew expression: Uh Oh!

What can we do to address this reproach? We will look at this in the last installment, part 4.

This presentation was originally made in the Chapel of NOBTS in March of 2009. For a video version of the original presentation by Dr. Kelley, click this link. If you want to skip by the singing part of the service and go directly to the “New Methodists” presentation by Dr. Kelley, skip to the 7:35 point in the video.

Dr. Chuck Kelley is President and Professor of Evangelism at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary



This is the second of a four part series of articles taken from Dr. Kelley’s presentation on the New Methodists. In part one, he walked us through the history of evangelism in the SBC. In this second part, he examines our current state of evangelism. In the third part, he will explain where we’ve gone wrong. And in the final installment, Dr. Kelley will present a way to fix the problem.

Part 2: The Current State of Evangelism in the SBC

It is important that we understand the true nature of the genius of Southern Baptist evangelism.

It was not the individual methods used that produced such an incredible harvest. Rather, the interaction of those methods with each other created an integrated process described in the New Testament as sowing and reaping. Wheels alone can generate power. But if you add cogs to those wheels so that they form a gear, you multiply the power those wheels produce.

The SBC way of doing church embodied the biblical process of sowing and reaping (see for example 1 Cor. 3:6 “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase”), but these particular interactive methods were not the result of a search for a way to embody that process in churches. The lack of comment on the way these individual methods became an integrated process characteristic of SBC churches is one of the more astounding discoveries of my research. We will come back to this later.

Let’s go back to those baptism statistics that I mentioned in part 1. In 1945 the SBC baptized about 257,000 people. In 1955 the SBC baptized about 417,000 people. But since 1955 the SBC never yet reached the mark of 450,000 baptisms. We doubled in baptisms in ten years, but then could not increase 35,000 in more than 50 years. What happened to the harvest? What happened to the farm?

For many years I said: “Southern Baptists are a harvest -oriented denomination living in the midst of an unseeded generation.” We reduced planting, neglected cultivation, and not surprisingly have found the harvest coming up short. But I now realize something more is going on. Today I say: We are more like gardeners working the window boxes than farmers working the fields. “We are the grandchildren of farmers keeping harvest stories alive over coffee and dessert at family reunions.”

The most important question facing the SBC today is: Why? The methods we use are not the crucial issue. The Bible speaks little of methods. An open fire, an oven, or a microwave will all accomplish the same purpose. Tasks will always outlive methods. By the way, this applies to whatever better way of doing things some of you might develop as well!

The amount of money available to spend on evangelism is not the crucial issue. In 1906 W. W. Hamilton created the first department of evangelism for the SBC. With no budget allocation at all, he found a way for the department to make a great impact and grow to include more than 20 evangelists. After a tragic embezzlement by the treasurer of the Home Mission Board, the Board was nearly bankrupted and had to shut down the evangelism department for a decade. In 1936 Roland Q. Leavell was asked to re-launch the department with only one staff member – himself! With little money and no assistance he laid the groundwork for the greatest period of fruitfulness in the history of the SBC. During that legendary period of 1945 to 1955, when we doubled in baptisms, the staff of the evangelism department never grew larger than 3 people, including a secretary. Money is important, even very important, but it is not the crucial issue reducing our fruitfulness. Having more money will not turn things around.

The gospel’s power is not the crucial issue. Our message has the same power to transform any human life today that it had in the first century of the church. The penitentiary in Angola, LA is the only maximum security prison in the state. With more than 5,000 prisoners, it houses the largest collection of violent people in the United States and has long been known as the bloodiest prison in America. More than 90 percent of the men have prison sentences, so long they will die and be buried in prison. Most would agree these men must be terrible prospects for salvation, much less for a call to the ministry.

Fifteen years ago we began a program of training for ministry in the Angola prison, teaching a small group of prisoners whom God had touched the same curriculum we teach in the Seminary’s Leavell College. The results have been stunning. We have about 150 graduates to date, and upon completion of their studies each man becomes a pastor in some part of the prison. Call it a cell church movement! Violence has dropped dramatically. The prison has become a different place, amazing people in the justice system all over the United States. The impact of these prison preachers has been so great they are now being sent out two by two into other prisons to teach there what they learned in Angola.

There is that ancient Hebrew expression again. Wow! The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of incredible power still today!

What then is wrong? To this question, we turn in part 3 in the next article.

This presentation was originally made in the Chapel of NOBTS in March of 2009. For a video version of the original presentation by Dr. Kelley, click this link. If you want to skip by the singing part of the service and go directly to the “New Methodists” presentation by Dr. Kelley, skip to the 7:35 point in the video.

Dr. Chuck Kelley is President and Professor of Evangelism at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

This is the first of a four part series of articles taken from Dr. Kelley’s presentation on how Southern Baptists could become the “New Methodists.” In this first part, he walks us through the history of evangelism in the SBC. In part two, he will examine the current state of evangelism in the SBC. In the third part, he will explain where we’ve gone wrong. And in the final installment, Dr. Kelley will present a way to fix the problem.

Part 1: The History of Evangelism in the SBC

For the last several years, following the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, I have been immersed heart and soul in the recovery and restoration of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. An invitation to address the SBC evangelism directors at a recent meeting in New Orleans came as a breath of fresh air, giving me a reason to return to the passion of my adult life: the study of Southern Baptist evangelism. I used the opportunity to take a deep look around and for some time have been digesting what I saw. I have drawn some conclusions I feel I must share. Along the way, the preparation of this presentation became the preparation of my soul for seeking a stirring of God’s Spirit in my heart and across the Southern Baptist Convention. May it be so for you as well.

The road we will walk begins with the amazing story of how Southern Baptists became the largest non-Catholic religious body in America.

The best snap shot is this. In 1945 Southern Baptists baptized approximately 257,000 people into their churches. In 1955, only ten years later, they baptized approximately 417,000 people, almost doubling in just ten years. To quote an ancient Hebrew expression: Wow! That is amazing, phenomenal growth. How did we do it?

The easiest way to explain it is this: Old McBaptist had a farm! Southern Baptists developed a way of doing church very similar to the way a farmer raises crops. For instance, farmers need land in order to produce a harvest. Southern Baptists realized they needed a permanent presence in a community in order to reach that community, and so from their earliest beginnings they emphasized church planting. They knew starting churches would give them a continuing presence in the place where prospects lived.

Farmers know the crop they want to grow must match the climate they have. You can grow cotton in Mississippi, but it doesn’t do well in northern Canada. To have evangelistic results churches needed a climate continually affirming for the congregation the importance of sharing Christ with the lost.

Southern Baptists used decisional preaching, that preaching which calls for an immediate and public response, to help create and maintain a climate emphasizing evangelism in the worship services of our churches. In many ways the format of evangelistic crusades and revival meetings was absorbed into the normal style of worship for Southern Baptist churches. The invitation following every sermon was a weekly reminder that no one was right with God until they made a personal response to Christ. This was a constant reminder of why evangelism must be a priority in the programs and ministries of the church.

Farmers know they cannot get a harvest without planting seed in the soil. Southern Baptists realized that most of the unconverted did not come to church. They knew they had to get the gospel outside the walls of the church, and they did so with personal evangelism throughout the community. For example, the typical Baptist church would devote at least one night a week to evangelistic visitation, going out to the families in the community for the specific purpose of sharing the gospel with them. Evangelism was not limited to pastors in the pulpit. It also involved the people of the church in face-to-face conversations with people they knew and did not know in the community.

Farmers know that planting seed will not in and of itself produce a crop. Once planted, seed must be cultivated. It needs enough water, but not too much. Bugs and disease must be kept at bay. Southern Baptists knew that sharing the gospel one time with a lost person would usually not result in conversion. A process of cultivation was necessary for those who heard the gospel but did not respond immediately.

Sunday School became the cultivation strategy for SBC churches. It was the only thing you could join in an SBC church without being a member. Churches expected most Sunday school classes to have lost and unchurched people present on a regular basis.

Why Sunday School? It was an efficient way to harness the power of “Biblelationships.” That is my word to describe the combination of Bible teaching and relationship building at the heart of the Southern Baptist approach to Sunday School. All ages were involved in Sunday School. Those who came would hear the Bible, promoting better understanding of the gospel, and they would form meaningful relationships with Christians in the class. Sunday school classes taught the Bible and had ice cream fellowships. There were devotionals and hymns, but they also sent members to visit classmates in the hospital and prepare massive amounts of food for those who lost loved ones.

The Biblelationship combination of teaching Scripture and nurturing relationships was a powerful tool for cultivation, often used by the Holy Spirit to draw closer those from all age groups who had heard the gospel but had not yet responded.

In part 2, we will look at the current state of evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention.

This presentation was originally made in the Chapel of NOBTS in March of 2009. For a video version of the original presentation by Dr. Kelley, click this link. If you want to skip by the singing part of the service and go directly to the “New Methodists” presentation by Dr. Kelley, skip to the 7:35 point in the video.

Bill Harrell has served as Pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Martinez, Georgia, for over 30 years. He also is active in the Augusta Baptist Association, Georgia Baptist Convention, and SBC, including having serving as the Vice-President of the Georgia Baptist Convention and as Chairman of the SBC Executive Committee.

In the short span of time of about five years, those of us who are observers of activities within the Southern Baptist Convention have witnessed not only changes but mega-shifts in our convention. It would take a large volume for someone to treat all the various subjects at hand but I want to address just a few that are very subtle in some ways but very overt in others.

Most of our Southern Baptist people are just tending to the business of the Kingdom in their part of the world unaware of the forces that are in play and what those forces are trying to achieve and indeed are achieving with much success.

Two things have come to our attention in recent days that bear watching. First, our agency for missions within the US, NAMB, has been using some of the Cooperative Program funds to help establish “Acts 29” churches. These churches must, by their own charter, be organized as five-point-Calvinist churches. There are those who have it as their goal to change the SBC into a Reformed convention more akin to a Presbyterian church that a Baptist church. I cannot, in these few words, get into a broad examination of what is going on, but any informed member of the SBC understands that this is happening.

The driving force behind the Acts 29 churches has been Mark Driscoll; and I do not need to elucidate how controversial he is. He has become, to the younger people, somewhat of a folk hero who they are willing to follow no matter what he says or does. Chapter 10 of his recent book, Real Marriage, is nothing but pornography. It encourages people to think that it normal to do sexually what the Bible condemns. Yet, it is Southern Baptist people who suddenly seem willing to accept the things that the people of our convention rejected outright as sinful until recently. In recent days the leadership of Acts 29 has shifted to someone else, at least in the public eye. Driscoll is the founder of this emergent church, Calvinistic organization; and many believe he will still be the “behind the scenes” leader. Being the founder, he is not going to “ride off into the sunset” too easily or too far.

Let me suggest why the younger generation finds it so easy to accept the kind of things Driscoll mentions in his book. This is the generation that was raised on the internet and all that it offers including pornography. I believe that this young generation is willing to accept and actually applaud the activities that are suggested as acceptable sex in chapter 10 of Driscoll’s book. I believe that many, though certainly not all of the younger generation that is currently pushing for such radical changes in the SBC are not alarmed by the content of chapter 10 because they have been exposed all of their lives, through the internet, to the grossest of pornographic videos and images. Many have exposed themselves to this internet trash and it has imprinted their minds. They think it is okay to do such because they have been dealing with it for years. They are part of the video generation who had the ability to go to their rooms at night and spend hours looking at pornography while their parents thought they were asleep. So, no wonder they don’t blink an eye at what Driscoll refers to in chapter 10. In fact, they wonder why we old “fuddy-duddies” are so worked up about it all. Only people who are accustomed to consuming pornography would gravitate toward such filth and endorse it. Some have noted what a good book he has written, especially in the first chapters. One must realize that it was the same mind that wrote those chapters as the one that wrote chapter 10 and encouraged people to do such things even to the point of providing web sites to help people know where to find aids that would heighten the sexual experience. Because human nature is what it is, things will get worse before they get better. How far will such people as Driscoll have to go before we become convicted and turn away in disgust? We are far removed from the purity that was expected of the New Testament Christians.

The people of the SBC in annual meetings have made it clear that they want nothing to do with Driscoll or Acts 29, yet some of our leaders continue to thumb their noses at what they know has been said on the issue at the convention. They don’t care what we think because these leaders of this new wave of thought are convinced that they are in control so they will do as they wish no matter what we think.

NAMB has been helping to start churches in the St. Louis area that are Acts 29 affiliated. The leaders at NAMB were confronted several months ago about this and we were assured that they were not funding Acts 29 churches with SBC monies. This all died down for a few months, and now we find that they have continued to do this. I don’t know about other people in the SBC, but I do not plan to fund such activity. I also believe that if the masses of the SBC people were to find out what is going on they would not fund it either. The real problem is that those good people are not informed about the current direction of the SBC. They trust their leaders and agencies never realizing that such is happening. The very people they trust are relying on them to continue to give because that is what they have always done and, at the same time, they are going in directions the good people of the SBC would never go.

There is a growing emphasis on church planting and missions. Let me offer a suggestion as to why. The young Calvinists, who are being turned out in numbers from Southern and Southeastern in particular, are finding it difficult to get a job in a Southern Baptist church because 90+ % of our churches reject five point Calvinism. The leaders of these seminaries know they cannot tell a young person that “we are going to educate you in Calvinism, but we want you to know that it will be difficult for you to get a job in a Southern Baptist church when you graduate.” Now suppose they told them that. How long do you think they would attract students in number? So, they are pushing church planting and missions to give these people an outlet for ministry opportunities. They can’t afford to warn the young student about the reality of job hunting in the SBC as a five point Calvinist. They just make them a part of their little group, which I describe as an “intellectual, spiritual groupie thing.” They have their gurus who they follow almost unquestionably. The same is true of those attached to the Acts 29 group. As churches get more familiar with the situation, they are starting to ask directly if a candidate is sympathetic to or is a part of the Acts 29 network. When the average Southern Baptist church finds out that they are connected to or sympathetic to Acts 29, they turn from them and seek another candidate. So, this new emphasis on church planting is being largely driven by the fact that five-point-Calvinist students and Acts 29 adherents need a place to go preach and minister because churches do not want their theology (in the case of the Calvinists) or their organization (in the case of the Acts 29 group).

These church starts in the St. Louis area are very revealing and bear watching. Lifeway, which is in the process of being changed into a Reformed agency, has just released a series of Sunday School lessons on the gospel of which all authors are Calvinists except maybe one person. Now, let me ask a question: With 90+% of the SBC people rejecting Calvinism, how did our educational agency happen to product a Sunday School series on the gospel that is authored almost exclusively by Calvinists? I think it was by design. It was intentional and done because, as stated previously, they think they are in control of the convention enough at this point that they can do as they please.

I believe that it has always been a dream of the President of Southern Seminary to use that institution of higher learning as the home base for making the SBC a Reformed convention. Even Christianity Today saw this. When Al Mohler arrived at Southern in 1993, he began firing the liberals who did not hold to inerrancy. We all watched and said, “Praise God, Brother Al is getting rid of those liberals.” We just didn’t notice that as he fired the liberals, he replaced them with inerrantists who happened to be Calvinists. Some were not even Baptist; they were Presbyterian. The Southern Baptist people were so overjoyed at the way Southern was being brought back into the inerrancy camp that we were totally unaware of the direction in which it was being taken. Now we see. Southern and now Southeastern are both turning out numbers of the young, restless Calvinists with Southern having been doing it for years. We have a large number of them seeking to pastor our churches. Many churches that are not Calvinistic in their theology have been ruptured by these young preachers who accept a call to a church but fail to tell them that they are five point Calvinists. The church is usually split and damaged before they find out the truth. One will be loudly condemned for stating this truth but as my Grandmother used to say . . . ”the proof is in the pudding.”

While I believe that there has been a long term plan to take the convention to the Reformed position, I also think that the number of our agency heads and leadership positions held by Calvinists or those sympathetic to that theological model prove the point. Where did Thom Rainer come from? Southern Seminary. Where did Ed Stetzer make his trek to Lifeway from? Southern. Where did Trevin Wax, a new writer and editor for Lifeway get his Masters degree? Southern. Where did Kevil Ezell come from? He was Al Mohler and Danny Akin’s pastor in Louisville. Where did Clark Logan, now at NAMB come from? Did you guess Southern? You are right. Even Danny Akin went to Southeastern from Southern. A “family tree” kind of graph, showing where the current leadership of some of our most influential agencies came from and who has been involved in their hiring, might be very interesting.

All of this points to why Lifeway would be so bold as to issue a Sunday School series on the gospel authored primarily by Calvinists. Dr. Mohler, along with The Founders group and others know that it would take five lifetimes to take the SBC back to a Reformed position church by church but he is also smart enough to know that it could be accomplished in only a couple of decades through the educational system: Lifeway. The good people of the SBC are not theologians. They simply trust their agencies and are unaware of the plan. They could be manipulated into the Reformed tradition through the educational process and never know what hit them. Also, less blood will be shed this way.

In connection with this, let me point out another thing that bears watching. With this gospel Sunday School series, they are subtly trying to change the definition of the word “gospel.” Even now, when those who hold to Reformed doctrine refer to preaching the “gospel,” they are meaning that one is preaching Calvinism. When one of the Calvinists says “preach the gospel brother,” he is really saying “preach that Reformed doctrine brother.” NonCalvinists are saying “preach the whosoever will gospel brother.” There is a vast difference. And, I believe that the goal is to re-educate the people of the SBC to understand that Reformed doctrine is the “gospel” and that the “gospel” is Reformed doctrine. Once that is accepted by the people after a couple of decades, the leaders of the Reformed resurgence can say, “we have done it; the SBC is now a Reformed convention.” And, they will have used the same basic approach to accomplish their goal as they use in the local churches: slow indoctrination that “sneaks up on the blind side.”

Let me pose this question: “Why, in the midst of all the other things that are transpiring that would totally transform the SBC, do we have this effort to change the name of our convention?” Let me offer this assessment. The effort is to “rebrand” the SBC. Call it something else and change the image of the convention in the minds of the people. At the same time the goal is to insert Calvinism as the identifiable theological bent of the convention. It would be easier to do it that way since the name “SBC” would not easily carry the designation as a Reformed convention. Rebrand it; rename it; insert Calvinism; educate the people that this is where the new convention is theologically. It would be much easier to call a newly named convention a Reformed convention than it would be to identify the SBC as a Reformed group. I realize that not all the people on the name change committee are Calvinists and had no concept of this. But, I believe others did. Those who are not Calvinists probably went along with the “nickname” approach because that is far better than totally changing the name, in their view.

Such name changing and rebranding was tried in 1995-96 when a committee studied changing some things so that we “could operate in a smoother way and more effectively reach the world for Jesus.” This committee renamed the Home Mission Board, NAMB. They renamed the Foreign Mission Board, the IMB. They eliminated some minor agencies. They thought that rebranding and renaming some of our key agencies would make things work better. Worked real well didn’t it? The whole process was a waste of time and money and at least one of the people involved with that process is involved in the current one. So, now they have come up with the brilliant idea of a “nickname”, Great Commission Baptists. Those who want to use this new moniker can do so in place of the Southern Baptist Convention name. This is only going to produce confusion in the eyes of those very people we want to reach. Now, some will have to say ”we are a GCB church”. Then comes the question: “I thought you were Southern Baptist.” “Well we are, but we are choosing to use Great Commission Baptists as our identifying name.” Now one would say, “so, there are two conventions?” “Well no, there is one but it now has two accepted names.” Is it just me or do others think that this is creating confusion? Let me tell you what I think will happen. I think that the GCB will become the “Calvinistic arm” of the SBC. The perception of the young, restless Calvinists is that their heroes are the ones behind this renaming approach, and they will run to be a part of whatever Brother So-and-so helped form and endorses. Soon it will be obvious that this “division” of the SBC is the Calvinistic “arm” of the SBC. Money will flow there in order to support whatever their leaders “suggest” is a good thing to support. So we will wind up with the CBF on one side, the SBC in the middle and the GCB (Calvinistic arm) on the other side. They will do the same as the CBF has done and stay in our convention and churches. More fracturing and confusion will be the result.

When people look at the different facets of the current happenings in the SBC, they can begin to get an idea of what is actually taking place and where it is all headed. Of course, this assumes that they have enough background. If current trends continue we will not recognize the SBC in a very few years. Which begs the question: “Is there NOTHING right about the SBC?” Is everything wrong and in need of radical surgery? I think not! These people are doing with the convention what many of them have done in churches: radically change the makeup of the church while making those who might oppose them out to be one who really doesn’t desire to be obedient to God or fulfill the great commission.

Things are changing in our Southern Baptist Zion and they are not for the good. If things continue on the present course, I predict that in only a few years we will not have thirty-five state and pioneer conventions but about twenty-five. Some will cease to operate. Some will combine with a more stable convention in order to survive. Additionally, I predict that the Executive Committee will cease to be the entity that has guided us so well in the past because fewer conventions will reduce the number of committee members. As it grows smaller someone will ask: “why have an Executive Committee? It is now much smaller and we don’t need to waste that mission money on having a meeting since we have the internet with the ability for each person to stay home and participate in a video conference.” There will be a movement to let the officers of the committee meet about twice a year, set up a video meeting and hold an Executive Committee meeting in such a manner. Next will come the bright idea . . . “Since we don’t have all those people meeting twice a year and since so much has changed, why don’t we sell the Baptist Building? We could take that money and start some more churches and send some more missionaries.” I mean, who in the world could be against such good things?

One might say I am being an alarmist, but I believe that the fragmentation of the SBC is already taking place and it will proceed in that direction until we are no longer the monolithic spiritual body that has influence in the nation and world. We will be like any other denominational body. We will not be the leader among denominations as we have been, but we will be classed with those that the world doesn’t care if they exist or not because they are no threat to the sinful directions of society.

I know that what I have said will be decried as harsh, but we are dealing with harsh realities in the SBC. If things follow a normal course, it will be the young theologues who have little or no experience who will be the harshest in their criticism of my thoughts. They are still “wet behind the ears” and don’t have the experience or background to say very much at all. In general they have no respect for those who have had a ministry of forty or more years. I really don’t care who says what. My observations are built on the foundation of sixteen years on the Executive Committee and thirty eight years of pastoring Southern Baptist churches.

The things I have mentioned are some of the things that bear watching. Time will prove if I am right or not. I think I am.

By Gary Ledbetter, Director of Communications of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and Editor of the Southern Baptist Texan

The first report of the committee appointed by SBC President Bryant Wright to consider a new name for the SBC indicates that they know their job is a hot potato. Chairman Jimmy Draper assured us that they are approaching the task prayerfully and deliberately. He also made clear that the committee does not favor changing the word “Baptist” in our convention’s name. As expected, “Southern,” seen as some to be an inappropriately regional identification, and “Convention,” with its institutional flavor, are up for grabs.

I’m not surprised by anything Dr. Draper has said up to this point and it is good that he has nailed down that we will continue to be called something Baptist for the foreseeable future. But with that communication from the ad hoc committee, I’m comfortable to sit back and wait for their final report.

I can’t help but wonder if those most dissatisfied with the convention’s current name will be eased by any response that retains the word “Baptist,” though. Some have actually found the term “Baptist” problematic for their ministries. Maybe it’s for embarrassments like Westboro Baptist “Church” (not Southern Baptist but many don’t know) or things we have done like the Disney boycott. Some churches may find a broader base of attenders by not leading with “Baptist.”

Thus, there’s a wave of “we’re still a Southern Baptist church, but we’d rather meet you before you know that” thinking. Many churches formerly “First Baptist [your city]” or “[your community] Baptist Church” now do business as simply “[your community name] Church” or “The Church at [your community name].” Some are more creative still, like Connection Church, launched in South Dakota by my friend Doug Hixson. I don’t really want to argue that your church answers to me or anyone else for the name you choose. I’m arguing instead that if you’re committed to Southern Baptists but are changing the sign out front to something more generic than Calvary Baptist Church, you’ve started down a more difficult road than you might think.

My family attended a Willow Creek-style church in a Midwestern city for about a year. It wasn’t called a Baptist church but we knew it was affiliated with other SBC churches on three different levels. As we considered membership, we began to ask those in our Sunday School class about the denominational identity of the church. They didn’t know we were Southern Baptist. Neither did our teacher know. We were interested to know how the church participated in cooperative missions so we asked a staff member (an SBC seminary grad) we’d met. He couldn’t answer our question but said he would find out. He brought us a budget summary that did not address our question to any discernable degree. We had to talk to the pastor to find out how the church we were planning to join was involved with other Southern Baptist churches for the purpose of missions. As best I could tell, few others knew the pastor’s vision for the church’s denominational involvement. I’ve heard similar stories from members of other churches for over a decade. The dissipation of Baptist identity within those churches was not the intent of church leaders as they chose a name or rename for their church. And yet, there seems to be an inevitable pull toward a more vague identity.

It sounds simplistic but having Baptist in the name means that the pastor doesn’t have to often say from the pulpit, “We are a Baptist church.” In churches with or without the formal Baptist designation, I’m saying he should do just that, and then he should explain why being Baptist matters.

It matters because Baptist churches have been key advocates for religious liberty in America. Our government’s occasional efforts to encourage freedom of conscience for people around the world are the legacy of Baptists in the United States. Baptists advocate for liberty because we were discouraged, even persecuted by other denominations of the time for preaching the gospel without their permission.

It also matters because Baptists in the U.S. have been among the most, if not the most ardent and effective advocates for missions in every place. That’s our heritage but it’s not just the past. We are still working hard to target the remaining unreached peoples of the world. We have a system that serves this purpose and we have a plan to address this goal. Yes, others are doing missions and smaller groups may be more flexible than our large enterprise; but when we call ourselves “Baptist,” we’re saying that we’re committed and poised to work together for the spread of the gospel.

Being Baptist matters because churches, made up of redeemed people who talk to God, operate under the direct headship of our Lord and Savior. No hierarchy and no outside conclave should interfere in that relationship. Self-governing churches made up of people who discern the will of God in community with other like-minded believers are a very Baptist interpretation of biblical (and Reformation) doctrine. Non-denominational churches may operate this way; newer and smaller denominations may be cooperating groups of autonomous congregations. Where this is so, these congregations are behaving in a right Baptist way.

I think being Baptist matters because there is a body of doctrine that describes us. Baptists believe that the two ordinances are symbolic and significant but not salvific. We have a polity we share with others who bear the name. Baptists believe that Jesus is the only means of salvation and that the Bible is his story—faithful in all that is purported there to be true. Of course, some Baptists accept infant baptism; others are not convinced regarding the authority of Scripture or even the uniqueness of Christ. These Baptists are notable exceptions and frankly have a dubious future among us. “Baptist” is still a useful shorthand way of saying something of what a church believes.

And yes, I do very much love and respect the various community churches and “churches at” one place or another. The pastors I know who’ve led their churches to adopt such monikers are Baptists and overwhelmingly not ashamed of it. For this valuing of these churches’ denominational lineage to trickle down over future generations, these pastors must go out of their way to make the story plain.

They must highlight, alongside various projects originated in their local congregations, the work done in concert with national, state, and associational partners. No church can do all that it’s commissioned to do without working with strategic partners.

Pastors of creatively named (and traditionally named) churches should highlight to church members the portion of their church budgets allocated for Cooperative Program ministries. Most vocational church leaders were educated through the generosity of Baptists they never met. Nearly every church was born with the assistance of Baptists in other locations, even other states and most often through CP funds. Freely we have received; freely give.

How about using new member orientation classes to highlight the reason and content of your church’s denominational identity? Years ago, my church used material produced by a sister church that completely bypassed the subject. It was a strange and inappropriate choice for a traditional and quite Southern Baptist church. Now, our material discusses the Cooperative Program and why we support it. Is there any good reason why any Southern Baptist church by any name should not do this as part of its orientation of new members?

Whether it is through Disaster Relief training and deployment, various kinds of ministry training (Sunday School, VBS, etc.), or some other kind of denominational partnership, church leaders should encourage their members to see and do firsthand the work of their fellow Baptists. In my experience, church members so oriented to their Baptist identity become more committed and useful in ministries of their home churches.

It seems clear that the Southern Baptist Convention is not going to change its name in any way that could obscure our Baptist heritage. The trend for new and established churches to choose names less denominational is also observable. It is a very Baptist thing these churches are doing—deciding for themselves how they’ll be known in their own communities. With a bit of intentional and continued work, our churches by nearly any names can also remain very Baptist things.

This article was first published in the Southern Baptist Texan on November 4, 2011 and was reposted with permission of the author.

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Introduction/Summary

This series has attempted to delineate historical doctrinal differences between Baptists and Presbyterians. Most of the nine points I have addressed were explicitly held by the Particular Baptists in contradistinction from the Presbyterian or Reformed theology from which they separated themselves. These, then, are distinctively Baptist beliefs. The first Baptist distinctive I addressed was a cluster of interrelated beliefs — soul competency, priesthood of all believers, and religious liberty. The second Baptist distinctive addressed was the age (or state) of accountability; the third Baptist distinctive I addressed was believer’s baptism (or “the gathered church;” and the fourth Baptist distinctive was baptism by mode of immersion, the fifth Baptist distinctive (in contrast with Presbyterian Calvinism) was baptism and the Lord’s Supper as symbolic ordinances, not sacraments; the sixth Baptist distinctive addressed congregational church polity (in contrast to Presbyterian elder rule); the seventh Baptist distinctive, examined the autonomy of the local church and how it is not a hierarchical denomination; and the eighth Baptist distinctive, I described the two scriptural officers (Pastor/Bishop/Elder and Deacon) and how they are not three (Pastor/Bishop, Elder and Deacon). The ninth and final Baptist distinctive that I will discuss is the importance of human freedom at conversion and how that undergirds the rationale for decisional conversion offered through gospel invitations.[1]

Distinctive Baptist Belief #9:
Decisional Conversion/Gospel Invitations

One basic fault line between most Baptists and Presbyterians regards the ability of sinful humans to respond to God.[2] The BF&M repeatedly affirms human freedom to respond and to make decisions. The “future decisions of His free creatures” are foreknown by God;[3] and God’s election to salvation “is consistent with the free agency of man.”[4] Persons are created by God “in His own image,” originally “innocent of sin” and endowed by God with “freedom of choice.” Even after the Fall, “every person of every race possesses full dignity.”[5] Salvation “is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” In regeneration the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus,” and repentance “is a genuine turning from sin toward God” and faith is “acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.”[6] The picture that emerges from the BF&M is that while sinful humans certainly cannot save themselves by any combination of good works, God requires persons to utilize the freedom of choice He created within them to respond to His gracious offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.[7]

Central to this Baptist perspective is that salvation fundamentally involves a response or choice on the part of the convert. Note the role for human response in the words of W. T. Conner, longtime theology professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in expressing the balance between God’s sovereign grace and human agency:

Jesus regarded men as sinful–all men–but He did not believe that men were fixed in their sinful state. He knew the love of God toward men, and He believed in the possibility of winning men to a favorable response to God’s grace. . . . Jesus did not believe, then, that man could lift himself out of his sinful state in his own strength, but He did believe that men could respond to God’s grace and let God lift them out of their sins. It is true that this response was one that was won from the man by the grace of God offering to save man. Yet it was man’s response. And Jesus counted on such a response on the part of sinful men. . . . He welcomed such a response. He eagerly watched for it. He said there was rejoicing over it in the presence of the angels in heaven.[8]

The primary vehicle for facilitating and experiencing this sort of human response in decisional conversion has been the public invitation. The Second Great Awakening engendered the explosion of the number of Baptists in North America, and although models for offering public invitations go all the way back to Pentecost, the use of the public invitation or altar call became a fixture in Baptist worship services after the Great Awakenings. The Separate Baptists of the Sandy Creek tradition brought this revivalistic focus into the Southern Baptist mainstream. There have been many famous Southern Baptist pastors and evangelists for whom the public invitation has been designed to be the high time in the worship service – none more prominent than the famous evangelist Billy Graham, whose image is canonized in a statue in front of the SBC building in Nashville.

There are scriptural and historical reasons for offering such a public invitation,[9] but doctrinally a decisional public invitation is logically entailed in other Baptist beliefs such as soul competency, believer’s baptism, and the gathered church. Only adults (those beyond the age of accountability) can have soul competence, can make a life commitment through repentance and faith that is the prerequisite to believer’s baptism, and become a member of a gathering of intentional believers. Many such decisions come at the end of a fairly long process as the Holy Spirit works through many events to lead the person to make such a decision (by convicting them of their sin and convincing them of the life-saving truth that is in Christ), but at some point it all comes down to a moment of decision. This moment of decision often comes in the midst of a worship service in response to the preached Word of God. The preaching of the Word in a worship setting and public invitations provide a particularly effective vehicle for the Holy Spirit to enable persons to get away from the distractions of life and focus on eternally significant spiritual issues. The public invitation presupposes what might be called a “decisional” view of salvation, as opposed to a more gradual or developmental view of salvation. In the “decisional” view of salvation, a sinner presented with the gospel can respond to God’s calling in a decisional moment through repentance and faith. Public invitations provide the opportunity for persons to be confronted with life-changing decisions and to make public the decisions that have been made.

There are many forms of public invitations. Some call for the person to come to the front of the church at the end of a worship service, counsel with the pastor or other spiritual counselors, and if the person comes to a decision for Christ (or has already made a decision), that decision is announced to the congregation. This approach is called by some an “alter call” (though I do not prefer that designation). Sometimes a more gradual approach might be taken, asking persons who are struggling with a decision to raise their hands or stand, pray for them, and then make an appeal to come to the altar if they feel led to make a decision. In other cases those who are struggling with a decision may be invited to come to the altar to pray, or to sit on an “anxious bench” (this was utilized particularly in the Second Great Awakening), or to go into another room to receive prayer and spiritual counseling. However, what all these various methodologies have in common is that they present an opportunity for persons struggling with a spiritual decision (whether for salvation, rededication, church membership, or a call to ministry) to come to a prayerful decision. It also affords a way to meet the scriptural requirement to publicly identify themselves with Jesus Christ, who Himself said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33). Thus, any form of invitation which provides an opportunity for personal decision and public confession would seem to be consistent with the requirements of the BF&M doctrine of salvation.

Presbyterians, on the other hand, tend to downplay public invitations and decisional presentations of the gospel. Although there are notable exceptions, most Presbyterians tend to focus on a more gradualist developmental approach to salvation. After infants are sprinkled, they later undergo catechetical training and are confirmed. In practice, the catechetical training is often more cognitive than volitional, and confirmation is more age-driven and developmental than decision-driven. The anti-conversionist “Old Light Calvinists” opposed the Great Awakenings because of their soteriological convictions. Although the pro-conversionist New Light Calvinists became the majority, the presence of infant baptism nonetheless diminishes the significance of decisional conversion in the Presbyterian doctrine of salvation. Modern day Old Light Calvinists such as David Engelsma reject the notion that adult or decisional conversion is required at all: “Speaking for myself, to the brash, presumptuous question sometimes put to me by those of a revivalist, rather than covenantal, mentality, ‘When were you converted?’ I have answered in all seriousness, ‘When was I not converted?’”[10] Further, Engelsma declares, “As a Reformed minister and parent, I have no interest whatever in conversion as the basis for viewing baptized children as God’s dear children, loved of him from eternity, redeemed by Jesus, and promised the Holy Spirit, the author of faith. None!”[11] This gradualist, covenantal view of salvation is far from the Baptist decisional view of salvation.

Some strongly Calvinistic Baptists have become enchanted with the Presbyterian model and would like to inject it into Southern Baptist life, particularly in regard to public invitations. In a discussion that would be astonishing to most Southern Baptists in the pew, a Southern Baptist seminary publication printed a debate between three of its faculty members about whether or not it is unbiblical for churches to have an invitation for the lost to be saved at the end of the worship service.[12] Jim Elliff argued that “it is my contention that our use of the altar call and the accouterment of a ‘sinner’s prayer’ is a sign of our lack of trust in God.”[13] Elliff claimed that “there is no biblical precedent or command regarding a public altar call,” but it was an invention of Charles Finney, and that “the sad truth is that it [the sinner’s prayer] is not found anywhere but in the back of evangelistic booklets.”[14] Elliff further questions the practice of pastors who would share Scripture verses about assurance of salvation with new believers, or to present them to the church publicly for baptism, because Elliff believes that the majority of these would-be converts are probably not genuinely saved.[15] As Ken Keathley has demonstrated,[16] Elliff’s suggestions do not stand up to the tests of Scripture and logic. While we should always guard against excesses of revivalism or emotional manipulation which might lead to a mere emotional response that lacks any real commitment, we should be eager to accept even a thief on a cross into the Kingdom. C. H. Spurgeon complained that some of his fellow Calvinists seemed “half afraid that perhaps some may overstep the bounds of election and get saved who should not be,” and claimed that “there will be more in heaven than we expect to see there by a long way.”[17]

It may be that the move away from having public invitations in Baptist churches is a contributing cause to why Southern Baptists baptized 50,000 fewer people per year in 2010 than we did in 1955, when public invitations were standard in virtually every Southern Baptist worship service. SBC churches baptized only 349,737 persons last year, which is 84,546 baptisms fewer than the 416, 867 baptisms we witnessed in 1955.  This stunning decline in baptisms is made all the worse by the fact that in the last 55 years our churches have increased significantly in every key statistical area except baptisms. We have over 15,000 more new churches in 2010 than in 1955, an increase of 50 percent (45,000 now vs. 30,000 then), but we had about 85,000 fewer baptisms. Church planting alone has obviously NOT been the answer. We have almost doubled our church membership from 8.4 million members in 1955 to 16.1 million members in 2010, but with 85,000 fewer baptisms. Our giving has increased exponentially from $334 million in 1955 to almost $12 billion in 2010, but there were 85,000 fewer baptisms. The population of the United States nearly doubled since 1955 (from about 165 million to over 308 million), but baptisms in Southern Baptist churches has been reduced significantly. In 1955 a person was baptized for every 20 church members; in 2010 that had more than doubled to 49 church members needed to reach and baptize one person. What’s worse, over half of the adult baptisms in SBC churches are actually rebaptisms, including believers coming from other denominations, so to count them is really double counting the same people. And nearly 80 percent of our churches are plateaued or declining.[18] At some level, if one might transpose the truth of James 4:2 (we have not because we ask not) to a different application, it may very well be that we have fewer decisions for Christ because we ask fewer to make decisions. It would seem that a re-emphasis on intentional evangelism and well-crafted public invitations could help reverse these embarrassing numerical trends, which reflect that we have been disobedient to the Great Commission and that we are not being the pliable vessels that God is using to transform lives through our churches that we were fifty years ago.

A Call for Doctrinal Integrity and Diversity within Christian Unity

In an earlier post entitled “The Middle Way,” I asserted that centrist Baptists are “the middle way” between Arminians and Calvinists/Presbyterians, and listed a dozen ways in which centrist Baptists differed from various Arminian groups. Now, this series has focused on nine key doctrinal differences between Baptists and Presbyterians (which did not include the five point summary of Reformed soteriology best known by the TULIP acronym–for a critique of five-point Calvinism from a centrist Baptist perspective see our book Whosoever Will).

Why all the focus on differences of belief?  Because we live in an era in which doctrinal distinctives tend to be minimalized in a non-denominational and ecumenical babble that suggests all Christians essentially believe the same things, or relegates important doctrinal issues to a tertiary status through a subjective theological triage. The high value given to multiculturalism and toleration in our culture tends to encourage breaking down barriers and to discourage the erection of fences between various traditions. The purpose of this series has been to point out that real doctrinal differences do still exist between various Christian traditions. To paraphrase Robert Frost, “Good fences make good (denominational) neighbors.”

In no way is this series of articles intended to diminish the practice and beliefs of fellow believers in other denominations. All denominations that broadly share the Reformation heritage share more beliefs in common (orthodox Nicean Christianity plus key Reformation beliefs) than beliefs on which we differ.  I have spent little effort in arguing that the Presbyterian perspectives are incorrect (which is not to say that I do not have reasons for believing so). My focus has been pointing out that real differences exist in doctrine between Presbyterians and Baptists, and to define what some of those differences are. Each of us has the right and responsibility before God to interpret the Bible to the best of our ability and practice what it says.

Let Baptists be Baptists by conviction, and let Presbyterians be Presbyterians by conviction. May we be unified as witnesses to Christ for the glory of God, and one in the Spirit in our affirmation of Jesus as Lord, but also people of integrity who do not compromise our doctrinal convictions!

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

As was announced in a recent “breaking news” story in SBC Today, Bryant Wright, President of the SBC, announced to the SBC Executive Committee last Monday evening that he has appointed a task force to consider the merits of changing the name of the Southern Baptist Convention, and make recommendations to him about a possible name change. Response to this announcement was rather passionate. Just in response to this article in SBC Today and on my personal Facebook page, there were over 100 responses about this issue. People do care about the name of the SBC.

What are the reasons given that we should or should not consider a name change for the SBC? I’m going to try to give a balanced presentation of the rationale both sides of the argument (pro and con) give for their position, and then make some suggestions in case the decision is made to change the SBC’s name. The reasons given for a name change are more centered on a single issue, and the reasons given against a name change are more varied — and hence there are more of them, but one should not necessarily assume that because more reasons are given that they are all of equal weight. However, these reasons against a name change should be dealt with adequately for a name change proposal to go forward. Each of us must weigh the strengths and weaknesses of this possible proposal, either for or against a name change. Because any name change proposal would require the majority vote of two consecutive SBC conventions, this decision (up or down) heightens the importance of churches sending messengers to the 2012 SBC Convention in New Orleans and the 2013 SBC Convention in Houston, at which this issue will be decided.

Reasons to Consider a Name Change

• Overcoming a Regional Identity – Fundamentally, all the reasons for changing the name of the SBC go back to that first word – Southern. We began primarily in the South, and most of our churches and members are still in the South. But we have become a national denomination, the largest Protestant denomination in America. Strictly speaking, the nomenclature “Southern Baptist Convention” is inaccurate. We are at least a national entity, with a global outreach. So “Southern” is simply no longer accurate in describing who we really are.

 

• Hindering Our National and International Ministry – I have served in summer ministries in Montana and Alaska, so I am aware of the “pushback” or confusion that our name causes in those sorts of “pioneer” settings (i.e., where Southern Baptists are a small minority).  As someone suggested in a comment to our SBC Today article, what if the “Yankee Baptist Convention” came to a Southern town? We would have reason by virtue of their name to assume that they were just looking for displaced Northerners as members. Likewise, a “Southern” Baptist Church in the Northeast, North, Northwest, or West does not resonate with each of those local identities. A name other than a regional name that excludes them would seem to be more helpful. In the international setting, “Southern” almost loses its meaning altogether. To a person in Bucharest, it is unclear what “Southern” has to do with it. So, particularly in reference to our work in areas of the United States outside the South, it would appear that the regional name “Southern” is a limiting term that excludes others.

 

• Negative associations with the word “Southern” – For most of us Southerners, the word “Southern” has profoundly positive connotations. The South is home. “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God,” the bumper stickers say. We are passionate about our football teams, we love our flags, and we have stronger “heart” identities with our states than people in some other states. We also think of “Southern Baptist” as standing for good things – a strong stand on the truthfulness of God’s Word, salvation through Christ alone, a heart for missions and evangelism, and strong family values stands on issues. It is hard for us to hear that there are also sometimes negative connotations that others hear in the word “Southern.” The Southern Baptist Convention gained its identity by splitting from other Baptists largely over the issue of slavery just before the Civil War. And though it has taken great strides in recent years toward racial equality and inclusiveness, some SBC churches and/or individuals have been and are associated with racist views. Those are not associations that we want to have. Also, the stereotype that people from other regions sometimes impose on Southerners (and Southerners self-deprecatingly apply to themselves) is the Redneck stereotype. Southerners are thus depicted as being ignorant, anti-education, prejudiced, and out of touch. Anyone who visits the modern South recognizes that those stereotypes are hardly true of the South as a whole, and yet they persist. So, while the word “Southern” has many good associations, it also has some negative connotations. We can remove those negative connotations with a name change.

Reasons to Reject a Name Change

• Name Brand Identity – The name “Southern Baptist” means something. It stands for people who take the Bible seriously. It stands for conservative theology. It stands for people committed to reaching the world for Christ in fulfillment of the Great Commission. It stands for people with biblically-based family values. As the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, there is an automatic identity that comes with the name. Many independent churches have joined the SBC in part because of what our brand name represents.

 

• Been There, Done That – The SBC has considered a possible name change for a long time. In 1958, the messengers to the SBC Convention in Houston were given a survey about a possible name change. About a third of the messengers favored a name change at that time. Motions have been made from the floor of the SBC to consider a name change in 1965, 1974, 1983, 1989, 1990, and 1998, and the motion to conduct a “straw poll” about a possible name change was defeated in 1999. The Executive Committee has initiated such studies in 1961, 1965-1967, and 1997-1998. Two other SBC Presidents have proposed studying a possible name change. W. A. Criswell proposed the study of a name change in 1974-1975, which led to the appointment of a “Committee of Seven” to conduct the study, which provided criteria for a name change but did not favor recommending a name change. More recently, Jack Graham proposed studying a possible name change in 2004, but the proposal to create a task force to do so was defeated. At that time, Graham said of the name change, “We need to either put it to bed forever or get on with it.” So let it be. Since in all these instances the name change proposals were rejected by the SBC, why revisit this issue and study it yet again? The Convention has already spoken repeatedly.

 

• We Hate Change – Most people don’t like change. We hate it when our banks change names three times in four years. Coca Cola thought it was a great idea a decade or so ago to “change” Coke to the New Coke. What a disaster! They went back to the old Coke. Many people still grumble about the name changes from the Sunday School Board to LifeWay, the Home Mission Board to the NAMB, the Foreign Mission Board to the IMB, and the Annuity Board to GuideStone. It may not be our most attractive quality that we’re resistant to change, but it’s a very human feeling. There is no groundswell from the people in the pew, from Bob and Mary Baptist, to change the name of the convention. This is not a burning issue with them. Most of them don’t desire it, and when it happens most won’t like it. If we voted on a name change by popular vote of church members, I believe it would lose by a landslide. Only by a convention action could this change be accomplished.

 

• · Legal Ramifications – One of the least understood reasons to reject a name change is that the SBC would lose important legal protections that we have by virtue of a Georgia charter affirmed by the Georgia legislature in 1845. Since the laws have changed, to refile a charter with a new name would mean that we would lose the legal standing that was “grandfathered in,” and we would be subject to the new laws (the Georgia Nonprofit Corporation Code) which appear to not be as conducive to Baptist polity as were the laws in 1845. In a legal opinion from Guenther, Jordon, and Price, dated January 13, 1999, our SBC attorneys wrote: “Opinion: If the Southern Baptist Convention changes its name the Convention would come under the present Georgia Nonprofit Corporation Code which would require the Convention to substantially alter its instruments and practices, its governance structure, and perhaps its polity.”

What difference does the new charter under new laws have? Under the original charter, we are free from the government intrusion entailed in the Georgia Nonprofit Corporation Code. If we changed the charter, we would come under the Code, and thus, for example, would have to (a) form a Board of Directors, (b) determine who the “members” of the corporation are, (c) 10 percent of the corporation’s “members” could petition the Georgia court to remove the Board of Directors, and (d) Georgia’s Attorney General could petition the removal of the Board of Directors. So, in other words, the Attorney General and courts of Georgia could determine decisions, leadership, or even actions of the SBC, not messengers from our churches. This is not a good thing. (For a more detailed statement of this concern, see http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2010/01/conclusion-whats-in-a-name-changing-the-name-of-the-southern-baptist-convention.html).

• The Immense Financial Cost of a Name Change – It is difficult to estimate just how much a name change would cost the SBC, state conventions, associations, and churches. First of all, many legal documents would need to be changed at all these levels. Some Baptist camps, colleges, and churches (such as one I pastored) have deed restrictions tied to being a Southern Baptist church or entity. All state conventions (and their entities) and thousands of churches would have to pay legal fees to refile their charter or articles of incorporation. Thousands of signs, from the SBC building to state conventions to thousands of churches, would need to take down the “SBC” and put in the “???BC” lettering. Hundreds of thousands of brochures, letterheads, business cards, and websites would need to be changed. Most new member training materials and missions promotion materials would have to be rewritten. The hidden costs just go on and on. Are the benefits of the change really worth this financial cost?

 

• Timing and Process Questions – President Wright is trying a new approach to dealing with this issue – he named a task force without seeking or receiving prior approval from the SBC or from the SBC Executive Committee. Therefore, the task force has no official standing with the SBC. It is simply an advisory committee to President Wright. Of course, the Executive Committee and SBC will have to approve the recommendation – the SBC will have to approve it in two consecutive conventions. But the time frame for the proposal seems rather rushed. This newly formed committee is charged to report to the SBC in mid-February, which is not so far away, given Fall state convention meetings and the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays. The proposal would then be presented at the SBC in New Orleans in June 2012. Questions have also been raised about if it is a bit premature to be soliciting names from Southern Baptists on a website beginning October 1 before some of the legal and financial issues have been satisfactorily resolved. This does give the appearance of rushing to a June 2012 vote without due diligence, though the committee does have experienced leaders who have information ready at hand.

 

• Timing/Yet Another Controversy – For a variety of reasons, many of the SBC conventions over the last thirty years have dealt with controversial issues. Along with the Conservative Resurgence vs. the Moderates battle, we have debated controversial issues like the Disney boycott, sole membership, and, most recently, GCR (to name just a few). The implications of GCR (which remains controversial to many Baptists) are just now working themselves out. It would be nice to have a few harmonious SBC conventions in a row to help rebuild our unity. We need time for healing in our fellowship before we deal with another controversial issue.

The name change issue is a mega-controversy – by that, I mean it is an issue larger than the issue itself. Over the summer I ran a four-part series on the fault lines in Southern Baptist life. I identified a number of foundational fault lines that divide us, such the stronger vs. weaker Baptist identity, small church vs. megachurch, centrist or majoritarian Baptist vs. Reformed Baptist, pro-GCR and anti-GCR, etc. I also noted that the shockwaves from some issues set off shockwaves in all the other fault lines. A name change in the SBC is just such an earthquake issue. I’ve already seen these fault lines dividing on the name change issue. The name change has been defended from a strong Baptist identity perspective and dismissed from a weaker Baptist identity perspective. Some small church pastors have suggested that Wright and other megachurch pastors are forcing this on them. Bryant Wright has been described as both an Arminian and a Presbyterian (hard to be at the same time!). Those opposed to GCR see this as just one more step by the GCR crowd, and the pro-GCR people seem to be mostly supportive of it. So, the point is that this is a controversial issue that will set off shockwaves throughout all the fissures of Southern Baptist life. The simple question is, “Is it worth it?”

Where We Go from Here

We’ll see in February what task force report or proposal is. The reasons for the name change are substantial and compelling. However, the reasons against it are significant and must not be lightly dismissed. However, I hope these challenges can be resolved satisfactorily. I’m not a lawyer, of course, but I think there might be a way around the legal issues. It is sometimes possible to continue with the original name and be “operating as” another name. For example, some of us older people remember the Woolworth Company – we associate it with modest sized “five and dime” department stores. Most of the Woolworth stores we remember went out years ago. Many people don’t realize, though, that the Woolworth company continued, operating under another name. In fact, at one point they were one of the largest owners of property in New York City. So, perhaps there is a way around that dilemma. The emotional, financial, and name brand identity cost issues are tougher nuts to crack. I don’t have an answer for those challenges. It will come down to a fundamental question for the task force: Are the obvious advantages of a name change worth the obvious emotional, financial, and name brand costs?

Let’s suppose that the committee and the convention decide that a name change is worth pursuing. What should the new name be?  Let’s start with the middle word – “Baptist.” That, as Bart Barber has pointed out, is non-negotiable. Leave out the word “Baptist” and you’re going to have open war from us Baptist identity people. Of course, I really haven’t heard anyone even suggesting that we would do such a silly thing.

Then, there’s that last word “Convention.” Technically, that is exactly what we are. The SBC does not technically exist 363 days a year. We just exist when the messengers from local churches are in session in the annual convention. However, this is a word that many Baptists and almost no non-Baptists understand. Perhaps another word would be better. I suggest “Fellowship.” Fellowship is a positive, warm word. It actually is quite accurate descriptively as well – we are a loosely-knit fellowship of local churches. Each church chooses voluntarily to enter in to fellowship and cooperative labors for the Lord together. What do we do when we want to kick a church out of an association, state convention, or the SBC? We dis-fellowship them! So Fellowship seems to be a better word to communicate the relationship of our churches to each other and the convention.

I saved the tough word for last – “Southern.” It is the regional associations of that word which provide the primary motivation for the name change in the first place. So, what word could we choose instead of “Southern”? Well, since I’m a strong advocate of the Cooperative Program, we could call it the “Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.” OOPS! That name has already been taken . . . .  Since the concern is about using a geographical term, we could move to a theological term – “Providence Baptist Fellowship,” “Grace Baptist Fellowship,” etc. But then, those names would likely be identified as being one sided with regard to the discussion over Reformed theology in the SBC. So, we could do “National Association of Free Will Baptists.” OOPS! That name has already been taken also. The name “Great Commission” has been suggested, but that probably doesn’t mean anything to lost people, and might produce negative connotations and beget more legal challenges in a day in which sharing your faith is being described by secularist and other religious groups as hate speech, not only in our country but internationally.

So, what word to choose instead of “Southern’? I suggest that we add another very important word to the name, but to do so we’ll need to reorder the words we have now. What we are above being Southerners or Cooperative or Great Commission or Doctrine X or even Baptists is . . . Christian! Nothing in our current name overtly identifies us with Jesus Christ or Christianity. So, my suggestion is that we make “Baptist” what it truly is – a modifier. “Baptist” just describes the kind of Christian we are. So, the name would be Fellowship of Baptist Christians (FBC). I believe that’s a name worth thinking about!

Other recommended articles and posts on this issue:

• From Baptist Press — http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36156 and http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=36157.
• From Dr. Mohler — http://www.conventionalthinking.org/2011/09/20/will-the-southern-baptist-convention-change-its-name
• From Dr. Patterson — http://www.swbts.edu/campusnews/story.cfm?id=8C2D4602-15C5-E47C-F9A22846B95C6639
• From Bart Barber – http://praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com/2011/09/sbc-name-change-proposal.html and http://praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com/2011/09/uphill-climb-for-name-change.html.
• From Peter Lumpkins — http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2011/09/sbc-name-change-new-page-offers-resources-for-sbc-name-change-by-peter-lumpkins-.html.
• From Tim Rogers — http://pastortimrogers.com/?p=2402
• From Ed Stetzer — http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/09/cru-who.html
• From Alan Cross — http://sbcvoices.com/the-name-change-won%E2%80%99t-matter-unless-we-have-a-heart-change-by-alan-cross
• From James Smith — http://www.gofbw.com/Blog.asp?ID=2696
• From Howell Scott — http://fromlaw2grace.com/2011/09/22/in-the-sbc-silence-is-no-longer-an-option/
• From Mark Lamprecht — http://hereiblog.com/does-southern-give-southern-baptists-bad-image/
• From SBC Today — http://sbctoday.com/2011/09/20/breaking-newssbc-president-proposes-name-change-for-the-sbc

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Introduction/Summary

All denominations that broadly share the Reformation heritage share more beliefs in common (orthodox Nicean Christianity plus key Reformation beliefs) than beliefs on which we differ. Despite these many points of agreement, it is the points of agreement on which theological discussions tend to focus. In an earlier post entitled “The Middle Way,” I asserted that centrist Baptists are “the middle way” between Arminians and Calvinists/Presbyterians. As evidence for this claim, I listed twelve points of doctrinal disagreement between centrist Baptists and many Arminians. Now, in this series, I am pointing out nine points of difference between centrist Baptist beliefs and the Presbyterian/ Reformed tradition. These nine Baptist doctrinal distinctives I will discuss do not include the five point summary of Reformed soteriology (best known in the TULIP acronym–for a critique of five-point Calvinism from a centrist Baptist perspective see our book Whosoever Will). In fact, most of the nine points that I will be addressing were explicitly held by the Particular Baptists in contradistinction from the Presbyterian or Reformed theology from which they separated themselves. These, then, are distinctively Baptist beliefs. The first Baptist distinctive I addressed was a cluster of interrelated beliefs — soul competency, priesthood of all believers, and religious liberty. The second Baptist distinctive addressed was the age (or state) of accountability; the third Baptist distinctive I addressed was believer’s baptism (or “the gathered church;” and the fourth Baptist distinctive was baptism by mode of immersion, the fifth Baptist distinctive (in contrast with Presbyterian Calvinism) was baptism and the Lord’s Supper as symbolic ordinances, not sacraments; the sixth Baptist distinctive addressed congregational church polity (in contrast to Presbyterian elder rule); and the seventh Baptist distinctive, examined the autonomy of the local church and how it is not a hierarchical denomination. For the eighth Baptist distinctive, I will describe the two scriptural officers (Pastor/Bishop/Elder and Deacon) and how they are not three (Pastor/Bishop, Elder and Deacon).[1]

Let it be said that this series is in no way intended to diminish the practice and beliefs of fellow believers in other denominations. It is intended to clear up some of the nondenominational/ecumenical babble that all Christians believe the same things. There are real differences in doctrine between Presbyterians and Baptists. Each of us has the right and responsibility before God to interpret the Bible to the best of our ability and practice what it says.

This series is designed (as was the earlier article regarding the differences between Arminian denominations and Baptist) to define what those doctrinal differences are.

Distinctive Baptist Belief #8:

Two Scriptural Officers, not Three

While the resurgence of Calvinism in the SBC has brought a reawakening of consideration of the role of elders in Baptist life, it is striking to see that the Calvinistic Particular Baptist confessions did not share this ecclesiology. Both the Second London Confession and the Philadelphia Confession identify two offices in a New Testament church. The first office is known variously as pastor, bishop, or elder, and the second office is of deacon. Clearly, pastors, bishops, and elders are seen as the same office in these Calvinistic Baptist confessions. In one of the rare places that the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message appears to reflect the language of the Philadelphia Confession, it identifies the two scriptural offices as “bishops, or elders, and deacons.” The subsequent 1963 and 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statements omit reference to elders altogether, referring to just two scriptural offices, “pastors and deacons.”[2]

The meaning of the word “elder” as a position in church leadership has varied widely in Baptist life. My first pastorate was in a Texas church that is now over 135 years old, and was blessed to have its church minutes going back to its earliest days when it was literally in Indian territory. The pastor/preachers then were circuit riding preachers who usually went by the title of “elders.” In the historical Baptist tradition, “elders” are primarily pastor/preachers (often bivocational), not ruling elders in the Presbyterian sense.

In the SBC now, the “elders” terminology is currently used only in a small minority of churches. In a 2007 study conducted by LifeWay research (referenced in earlier articles in this series), 405 senior pastors were asked the question, “Which of the following best describes the primary decision-making process at your church?” Among the pastors polled, 42 percent said their church was congregation-led, while 30 percent said their church was pastor-led. The other options and responses, in descending order of frequency include: Committee- or team-led (6 percent); deacon-led (4 percent); elder-led (4 percent); led by a board or council other than elders (3 percent); staff-led (2 percent); and trustee-led (0 percent). Seven percent responded “other.”[3] Even among those which were described as “pastor-led” or “elders-led,” of course, for the overwhelming majority (if not all) of these churches, the ultimate authority for major decisions is a vote of the congregation. Most or all of even those few churches with elders function according to congregational governance, not elder rule.[4] Therefore, when Baptists use the word “elder,” they are usually not using it in the same way that Presbyterians use it.

One unfortunate phenomenon in the SBC is preachers at conferences or seminary chapels who ridicule and stereotype deacons as being obstinate, stubborn, unspiritual, and stupid. It’s a cheap and easy shot to make fun of deacons, but it is tragic, because the office of deacon was not a human invention. The office of deacon was created by God to meet a genuine need within the church (Acts 6:1-8). The office of deacon is consistent with Scripture, with Baptist ecclesiology and doctrinal confessions, and with the historic practice of Baptist churches. In Scripture, we see that the office of deacon is one of two valid offices created in the New Testament church (1 Tim. 3:1-13).[5] I would caution persons against diminishing an office that God has created.

Some younger ministers, responding to “horror stories” about “demon deacons” have replaced the role of deacons with elders. Some young ministers who have banned deacons to create elder boards have discovered they empowered the elder board enough to oppose and destroy their ministry at the church – the same thing they were worried about from deacons![6] Actually, whether we call them lay staff members, elders, deacons, or committee chairmen, they all come from the same group of church leaders. Elders are deacons with more power.

Personally, I’ve never experienced a demonic deacon. Deacons aren’t perfect, of course. I have experienced very human deacons who had strengths and weaknesses, just as do we all. I have experienced deacons whose convictions or judgment differed on some issues from that of their pastor. I have seen some deacon fellowships become more like of a board of directors, losing the focus on servanthood that the office was originally created to be. In rare cases, I have seen deacons who so disagreed strongly with the pastor’s leadership (or they were called upon to voice the disagreement with the pastor or staff by a significant segment of the congregation), that they forced a confrontation that led to the forced termination of the pastor’s employment or a split in the church fellowship. Of course, I have also seen pastors make serious mistakes in judgment and express a nonChristian spirit as well. But overwhelmingly, I have found deacons to be devout and dedicated Christian men who want the very best for the church and for God’s kingdom.

One recently popular perspective in Baptist life is described as a “plurality of elders,” in which ordained or lay leaders perform functions identified in other churches as “church staff.” Mark Dever has been a leading exponent of this plurality of elders perspective.[7] However, this is often not the creation of a third office or the practice of elder rule, but identifying lay or ordained ministers as elders. Nor is it normally inconsistent with congregational governance. I see nothing in the plurality of elders position (utilizing multiple persons in pastoral staff roles) that is at variance with historic Baptist confessions or practice. Furthermore, because the autonomy of the local congregation is foundational for Baptist ecclesiology, individual congregations can organize their leadership churches as they feel led to do so.

The SBC is a fellowship of smaller churches. According to figures from church annual reports gathered by the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Church Health at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, about 60 percent of our churches (roughly 26,000 of them) have 100 or less in worship attendance each week. Another 18 percent of the churches (roughly 7,700 churches) have 200 or fewer in worship attendance. So, a total of about 33,000 churches, or 78 percent of all our SBC churches are smaller churches. Many of these smaller churches typically have monthly business meetings to vote on virtually every initiative and financial matter. So, in the 98.5 percent of the 40,000 Southern Baptist churches which average fewer than 1,000 in their weekly worship services, practicing democratic processes and congregational polity is very functional.

However, the larger the church, the less practical it is for congregations to vote on every little issue. As churches grow larger, many have moved to a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual business meeting (with called meetings for other major matters). It’s just too much for the entire congregation to vote about every detail. This is particularly true in megachurches, midmegachurches, and (somewhat overlapping) multisite churches. There are 347 “midmegachurches” in the SBC (those averaging between 1,000 and 2,000 in weekly worship attendance) and 177 megachurches (churches averaging over 2,000 in weekly worship attendance).[8] The reality in midmegachurches and megachurches (and even more so with multisite churches)[9] is that congregational rule becomes tenuous.  The predominant number of these churches entrust some smaller group the responsibility to deal with daily operational decisions and ministry initiatives. That small group may be the church staff, the deacons, elders, or some key committees. But again, the ultimate authority resides in the congregation as a whole, and the congregation still has the power (if they are unhappy with how things are going) to fire the pastor, fire staff members, dismiss the deacons, sell the property, redo the budget, or whatever they feel led to do.

Having surveyed the variety of legitimate expressions of the meaning of “elder” in Southern Baptist life, from a perspective of Baptist doctrinal confessions and ecclesiology, churches that have a third office apart from pastors and deacons or institute elder rule have departed from Baptist historical doctrinal confessions and ecclesiology in this practice. This is one of the key ecclesiological differences between Baptists and Presbyterians.

Wright had already appointed a task force to look into the name change possibility. Since the task force was not authorized by the SBC or the Executive Committee, it is unofficial and reports directly to the President.  The task force members are volunteers and will provide for their own expenses. Dr. Wright hopes the task force will have a recommendation ready in time for the February 2012 meeting of the Executive Committee, and that they will recommend it to the SBC Convention meeting in New Orleans in June 2012.

The committee appointed by Dr. Wright is to be chaired by Jimmy Draper, former President of LifeWay Christian Resources, and includes the following members:

• Michael Allen, Senior Pastor of Uptown Baptist Church in Chicago, IL
• Marshall Blaylock, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Charleston, SC
• David Dockery, President of Union University
• Tom Elliff, President of the IMB
• Kevin Ezell, President of NAMB
• Ken Fentress, Senior Pastor of Montrose Baptist Church in Rockwell, MD
• Micah Fries, Senior Pastor of Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church in St. Joseph, MO
• Aaron Harvie, Lead Pastor of Riverside Community Church in Philadelphia, PA
• Susie Hawkins, Bible study teacher and entity head spouse from Dallas, TX
• Fred Hewitt, Executive Director of the Montana Southern Baptist Convention
• Cathy Horner, Bible teacher and pastor’s wife from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC
• Benjamin Jo, pastor of Hana Korean Baptist Church in Las Vegas, NV
• R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of SBTS
• Paige Patterson, President of SWBTS
• Bob Sena, retired Director of Hispanic resource development for NAMB
• Roger Spradlin, Co-Pastor of Valley Baptist Church in “Bakersfield, CA and Chairman of the SBC Executive Committee
• John Sullivan, Executive Director-Treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention
• Jay Wolf, Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL

The announcement did not evoke a warm response from the SBC Executive Committee initially. Objections to the proposed name change included concerns about losing legal and financial advantages from the 1845 SBC charter, concern about forming such a significant committee without convention authorization, concern about the timing of raising this possibly controversial issue on the heels of the sometimes divisive GCR process, and concern that opening a website soliciting possible name suggestions from Baptists is premature before a thorough study of the legal and financial ramifications of such a name change. Two motions were made by EC members – one to ask for a yearlong study of the financial implications of such a change before the EC acted on any recommendation, and another to ask Wright to delay his announcement and seek the approval of the Convention in June 2012 rather than forming an unauthorized committee.  However, EC members voted down both of these motions.

Considering a name change for the SBC is not a new notion, nor is it the first time an SBC President has proposed such a study. Motions were made from the floor of the SBC to consider a name change in 1965, 1974, 1983, 1989, 1990, and 1998, and the motion to conduct a “straw poll” about a possible name change was defeated in 1999. W. A. Criswell proposed the study of a name change in 1974-1975, which led to the appointment of a “Committee of Seven” to conduct the study, and Jack Graham proposed studying a possible name change in 2004, but it was defeated in 2005. The Executive Committee has initiated such studies in 1961, 1965-1967, and 1997-1998. In all these instances, the name change proposals have been defeated by the SBC.

What do you think about the possible name change?  Do you have a name suggestion to recommend?