New Methodism’s Inevitable Challenge

Much of the story is also the case with the Southern Baptist Church, which is quickly apostatizing.Much of the story is also the case with the Southern Baptist Church, which is quickly apostatizing.

You need to change your mind as to what the title of this group is. There is no regional, national or global Southern Baptist Church as an entity, or as a denomination.

The Southern Baptist Convention is an Association of like-minded but autonomous individual local churches whose leadership arranges to share resources according to the well-recognized economy of scale. In this dimension, they confer to establish agreements consistent with mutually shared doctrine and evangelistic efforts.

This Baptist style of organization shuns any kind of episcopacy, and thus is not at all to be called a "Church" except as it applies solely to a local independent autonomous self-governed gathering of members under New Testament principles and polity.

To understand what the term "Baptist" (as a proper noun) is, one should examine the acronym featuring the essential distinctives that define a local Baptist (immersionist) assembly:

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Baptist "Distinctives"

in a nutshell:

o Biblical Authority (Sola Scriptura)
The Bible is the final authority in all matters of belief and practice because the Bible is inspired by God and bears the absolute authority of God Himself. Whatever the Bible affirms, Baptists accept as true. No human opinion or decree of any church group can override the Bible. Even creeds and confessions of faith, which attempt to articulate the theology of Scripture, do not carry Scripture's inherent authority.
o Autonomy of the Local Church
The local church is an independent body accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. All human authority for governing the local church resides within the local church itself. Thus the church is autonomous, or self-governing. No religious hierarchy outside the local church may dictate a church's beliefs or practices. Autonomy does not mean isolation. A Baptist church may fellowship with other churches around mutual interests and in an associational tie, but a Baptist church cannot be a "member" of any other body.
o Priesthood of the Believer
"Priest" is defined as "one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God." Every believer today is a priest of God and may enter into His presence in prayer directly through our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. No other mediator is needed between God and people. As priests, we can study God's Word, pray for others and offer spiritual worship to God. We all have equal access to God - whether we are a preacher or not.
o Two Ordinances
The local church should practice two ordinances: (1) baptism of believers by immersion in water, identifying the individual with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and (2) the Lord's Supper, or communion, commemorating His death for our sins.
o Individual Soul Liberty
Every individual, whether a believer or an unbeliever, has the liberty to choose what he believes is right in the religious realm. No one should be forced to assent to any belief against his will. Baptists have always opposed religious persecution. However, this liberty does not exempt one from responsibility to the Word of God or from accountability to God Himself.
o Saved, Baptized Church Membership
Local church membership is restricted to individuals who give a believable testimony of personal faith in Christ and have publicly identified themselves with Him in believer's baptism. When the members of a local church are believers, a oneness in Christ exists, and the members can endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
o Two Offices
The Bible mandates only two offices in the church - pastor and deacon. The three terms - "pastor, " "elder" and "bishop," or "overseer" - all refer to the same office. The two offices of pastor and deacon exist within the local church, not as a hierarchy outside or over the local church.
o Separation of Church and State
God established both the church and the civil government, and He gave each its own distinct sphere of operation. The government's purposes are outlined in Romans 13:1-7 and the church's purposes in Matthew 28:19 and 20. Neither should control the other, nor should there be an alliance between the two. Christians in a free society can properly influence government toward righteousness, which is not the same as a denomination or group of churches controlling the government.
Matthew 22:15-22; Acts 15:17-29

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Perusal of this will show you that anything like denominationalism is antithetic to giving a supra-church organization dominion over any of the local churches constituting such an assembly organized according to this New Testament polity.

To be considered the same as Catholic or Lutheran or Methodist or even Presbyterian is anathema to a Baptist assembly of professed believers. Baptists of any kind do not have or recognize any supra-church bishopric, archbishops, monsigneurs, cardinals, or (God forbid!) Popes as intermediaries between the individual believer and The Mighty God Himself, or His Son the Savior and Lord Jesus Messiah.

May this inform you as to how discussing the Southern Baptist Conference of associated churches should be understood and guided.

May the LORD review and chasten the reprobates claiming to follow the Wesleyan Methodism heritage as a New Testament form of the visible Kingdom of the Heavens.

No, the accountability is not to fellow brethren (who may or may not be the senior ordained elder of a local church); It is for the local church to be aligned with the statement of faith and rules of association to which they have subscribed and endorsed. If they are not ethical enough to declare that the local chuch is no longer observing following, then it has forfeited its pledge to sustain those standards, and thus either declare it and leave the fellowship, or by mutual agreement from theur initial status no longer qualify. The "disfellowship" is not a punishment or method of intimidation and manipulation by the leaders. It is just following through with the automatic DISQUALIFICATION (not to be taken as "dis-fellowship" or excommunication) according to the initial agreement they had joined with other churches in establishing and accepting the group's boundaries.

There are plenty of other such divisions of Baptists, none of which constitutes a denomination. The local church can pull out any time it wants, without having to give a reason, and have done so. It is a two-way street, like any other club. Unlike episcopacies, I doubt that the Conference makes its major decisions by fiat, by a dictatorial prerogative. The Southern Baptist Conference is NOT a denomination, neither are Baptists in general to be called "Protestants" because they are not split-offs from one or another of the Catholic- or Orthodoxen-derived episcopacies that _are_ denominations. When the people as the whole congregation of a Methodist church, or a Lutheran church, or a Catholic church, or a Greek Orthodox, or an Episcopal or Anglican church.. It's like a neutron bomb goimg off--the people go, the building and everything in it or owned by it, stays.

Not so by a Baptist church. If they leave the SBC, the GARB, etc, (and there are a bunch of them) then generally an independent autonomous congregation-funded church and its employees paid by them, the whole shebang leaves the conference/association with them. The conference does not likely own the property nor pay the pastor. The pastor's financial obligation and allegiance is to the congregation, not the association.If it does, then the church is not really "Baptist" at all.

What Is A Baptist?

There are three basic distinctions of Baptists:

1. Baptists only baptize those who have trusted Christ as their personal Savior. Baptism does not have any "saving power" but it simply and publicly identifies one as a "Believer."

2. Baptists believe that churches should be autonomous ("self-governing"). History has shown that it is better for a chuch and its leadership to be accountable to the local group of parishioners.

3. Baptists believe that Jesus Christ is the only Savior for mankind - as the Bible says. The message of Christ in the Scripture is more important than any religious system or dogma.

That's even more general basi platform from which, since Pentecost, the New Testament Baptist believer does not venture, Please notice the remark on the nature of relationship of the local assembly to any other regularly meeting of believers incorporated as the temporal gathering of the Body of Christ.

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