Thursday, May 7, 2009

Conservative resurgence?!?!?

The pet movement for all the Baptist Identity guys, but I have a question? Was it really conservative and was there a resurgence involved. Let’s start with the definition of these terms.

Conservative- disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

Resurgence- rising or tending to rise again; reviving; renascent.

By these definitions it is easy to see how this “movement” has been mislabeled. The authors of this movement, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, most certainly did not desire to preserve existing conditions. And the conditions they created with this “movement” took us to places and practices the convention had never seen, so “restoring traditional conditions” is out the window. The same can be said for the word resurgence. We have risen to a different level of exclusion and narrowing parameters. Baptist historically have been a people willing to cooperate with many different peoples that held to unwavering view of Salvation through Christ alone. That is not enough any more, so we have not “resurged” from anywhere. Parameters have grown so narrow, they won’t even cooperate with some Baptists that are in the convention.

So then, what was this movement really about? When P&P met so many years ago, it was not for a prayer meeting. It was a meeting to systematically take over political control of the SBC in order to gain power and position. If I am honest I must admit that some good things have come about through this movement. Our Senior Pastor says, “No one is dumb enough to be 100% wrong”, but at what cost? I am reminded of a time when this country held congressional meetings to search out communists. I believe that the same thing happened within our seminaries. How many innocent professors, teachers, and pastors have we torched in the crusade to rid the SBC of liberalism?

The same continues today. The SBC has created a group of leaders that lead us to exclusion, where those with differing views are told they can’t play. Now to be clear, I am not talking about people that support homosexuality or even believe women can be pastors (even though I think there is some Biblical support for this issue). People that believe in Salvation through Christ alone, have been told the SBC wants nothing to do with them. They are labeled and ostracized.

I long for the old days of the SBC, when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was paramount, churches were autonomous., politics were outside the convention., and cooperation in building the Kingdom was a priority.