Over the past year, I have come to really appreciate the insight, scholarship, and wisdom of Dr. Mark DeVine (especially on the emerging church movement), associate professor of Christian Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Devine recently shared his reflections on the Building Bridges pamphlet distributed to all the messengers at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. I thought I’d share a portion of what he wrote (emphasis mine):
Dockery and George offer incisive overviews of the history of Southern Baptists, its now complicated make-up, the new challenges facing the denomination and a plea for the development of a new consensus that can anchor us as a people in evangelical, orthodox confession but also free us from constant self-destructive fighting over secondary issues (important issues but still secondary). The continuance of such controversies threatens to fracture our fellowship and to divert and drain energies better spent in evangelism and church planting. Failure to build the needed new consensus could ensure that the now undisputed decline of Christianity in North America will drag the SBC down with its terrible tide. . . . Current controversy surrounding private prayer language and now the consumption of alcohol highlight the ease with which SBC energies can be diverted from the great task of global evangelism and church-planting into fractious fights we can ill-afford where the character of the gospel and other core doctrines of orthodox, evangelical and biblical faith are not at stake. 14,000 copies of Building Bridges are now in print. Read it for yourself if you can lay your hands on a copy and if you share the message contained therein, pass the word along. The difference between a future of fighting, fragmentation and decline or one of growth, fellowship, and advance of the gospel may hang in the balance.
Amen.
I don’t disagree with the sentiments, but I am wondering if it’s too late in our post-denominational era. While there seems to be some resurgence of the autonomy and centrality of the local church – and that is hopeful – don’t you think that many will just wait and see what happens to determine if they will remain ‘in friendly cooperation with the SBC’?
We have to agree on the primary and the (important but) secondary before we will treat them as such. Seems unlikely from here….
Seems unlikely, but I am optimistic.
You are right. There must be principled partnership, not just blind allegiance. I think that Drs. Dockery and George realize this and have laid out some helpful directives and parameters for cooperation in the future. That is not to say that it is fail-proof or comprehensive; rather, I see it as a starting point, and if continued, better things to come.
I believe it is possible to develop a passion for the local church while seeking to cultivate kingdom-centered partnerships for the gospel. If there is going to be a recovery of the gospel in our churches, then the churches that are dead or dying need to be enlivened by other churches that come alongside them and encourage them to live faithfully and fruitfully for the Lord. Then again, if “friendly cooperation with the SBC” means towing a party line or pledging allegiance to some monolithic point of view on nonessential matters, then I would agree with Dr. DeVine who said that such a stance will drag the SBC down in a terrible tide. I am hopeful for the former and pray against the latter.
Amen to that.
(It is increasingly difficult to cooperate for the sake of the gospel if there’s no confidence that we agree on what the gospel really is, or what the role of the local church is for that matter. Wonder if I’m coming off a bit crusty. That said, I will join my prayer with yours.)
I have read it in blogs and heard it in person that those “secondary” issues are not truly secondary, they are an affront to Almighty God. (Make sure you pronounce Almighty as Almaughty to get the correct effect) They are also against the historical Baptist identity that every Baptist knows.
I’ll just cut to the chase. As a layperson, I find the lack of humility in this trumpeting of historic Baptist identity (We’ve got more right than YOU do) to be a major red flag.