Southern Baptists Call Off the Culture War

The Atlantic ^ | 6-16-2018 | Jonathan Merritt

[Salman]

America’s largest Protestant group moves to cut ties with the Republican Party and re-engage with mainstream culture.

It was immediately clear that change was afoot in Dallas. I’ve attended the annual gatherings of the Southern Baptist Convention dozens of times, but walking around the convention center this week, I was struck by how unfamiliar it all felt. When I was a child, the convention hall was a sea of silver combovers and smelled of denture paste. While the older, more traditionalist crowd was still present in Dallas, the younger, fresh-faced attendees now predominated.

“The generational shift happening in the SBC has thrust the group into the middle of an identity crisis,” says Barry Hankins, chair of the department of history at Baylor University and co-author of Baptists in America: A History. “The younger generation thinks differently than the old guard Christian right about culture and politics, and they are demanding change.”

To enact this change, young Baptists nominated 45-year old pastor J.D. Greear from North Carolina to be president of the denomination. In a campaign video, Greear called for “a new culture and a new posture in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

...

[conservativesister]

There is a man by the name of Russell Moore that absolutely hates Donald Trump and he is head of “Ethics” group with a huge budget, his main office is in DC and he is working against the President.
I get very frustrated that a portion of my tithes go to that man, I may designate it all for our building committee.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Methodists have been apostate for decades.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Agreed. And I just plain tire of this music-worshipping concert-going approach.

And I am not “old”. I don’t need to be pandered to. I think we should be singing but in awe, in reverence, not rocking out like nuts. I have plenty other times to rock out, thank you very much.

7 words repeated 11 times. Yup, 7-11.

[Louis Foxwell]

Lutherans remain nominally Biblical. Methodists do not. Nor do Episcopals but everyone knows that.

[madison10]

Not sure if “everyone knows that.” It certainly depends on the church/congregation when looking at the UMC. The one in my town is conservative up to this point. The young, Free Methodist-educated pastor they have is leaving soon.

As for the Lutherans: Missouri Synod is very strict, guess Biblical. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is quite liberal.

Agree about the Episcopalians.

[rebel25]

as a southern baptist i can say the churches are all locally controlled. about half will not baptize anyone this year. focusing more on GOD and less on politics is how i read this. prior to 2016 i said GOD is not a republican but Satan would be a democrat, now Trump has shown the deep state uniparty for what it is and i am through blindly following the republicans, so this doesn’t bother me at all. As long as the convention continues to state the Bible is the perfect literal and infallible Word that is what matters

[rebel25]

i love to hear glorious day and your name is a great song. praise music helps reach different people spiritually

[PAR35]

They’ve (the liberal Southern Baptists) have spent the last couple of months going after the surviving leaders of the counterrevolution that ended the pro-abortion, pro-sexual license trend of the Southern Baptist leaders of the 1980s. Paige Patterson was forced out at Southwestern seminary last month, and Paul Pressler has been vilified over events alleged to have happened over 40 years ago. Lawsuit with ‘me too’ claims. Accusers live in New York and Washington state.

[fishtank]

In this interview, pastor Tom Buck relates how at the SBC, someone called Matt Chandler a social Marxist, and Chandler said that he would embrace that label.

https://youtu.be/eUUDEZz0yiY

[fishtank]

K-LOVE = “Hillsong Barney and the Spasmodic Xylophones”

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

My SBC church will not be changing anything. There are a lot of gray areas in the Bible, but homosexuality is not one of them.

[Jess Kitting]

With all these denominations turning away from traditional Christianity, where do I turn for truth?

Roman Catholic

Episcopal

Presbyterian

Methodist

Lutheran

Baptist

Who's left?

[kosciusko51]

Presbyterian? PCUSA, yes. But check out the PCA or OPC.

[itsahoot]

[WalterSkinner]

..SBC on an apology tour in recent years for things like racial issues now gender issues. Moving more toward liberal ideas though holding “officially” to the Baptist Faith & Message, which is doctrinally solid. We will closely watch what Greear says and does over the next couple of years—if we have that long...

[WalterSkinner]

..Rick Warren and now Andy Stanley are indicators where the SBC is heading. Greear says the right things regarding basic doctrine, but still is moving toward that post modern cultural model. Truth will be sacrificed at some point...

[righttackle44]

In other words a silly group not to be taken seriously.

The real silliness here, sir, are you words. The Southern Baptist Convention does not speak for the individual churches that cooperate with the Convention, nor does it speak for the individual members who make up the local churches.

From time to time, the liberal faction of the Messengers (the delegates who are sent to the Convention by the churches) make a power grab, and then there is a scrap for a couple of years until the more conservative church members and churches are able to demonstrate the horror that the more liberal faction has foisted upon the Convention.

The Southern Baptist Convention is not monolithic. Mostly, the Convention is finally made up of the quiet church members who pray and want to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached--that is, Christ and Him crucified. They want to hear solid teaching and preaching, and they, for the most part, do not meddle in the politics of the liberal vs. conservative battles that go on, which are often poked into existence by the media and other liberal denominations who hate that the SBC is larger than their denominational body.

So before you go making absurd--REALLY absurd--statements such as you have, I'd suggest you get your facts together. Unless, of course, you're one of those independent Baptists whom God has appointed to be the Baptist conscience of the world.

[SaveFerris]

Andy will never be his father.

[napscoordinator]

I had a friend who was southern baptist. I was in his wedding. The reception had no alcohol or dancing. As a Catholic, itvwas the most boring wedding I ever attended. If the start drinking and dancing at weddings then perhaps this is a good direction.

[YogicCowboy]

The Baptist Church has a long history with the Democrat Party.

They are not generally as conservative as secularists suppose.