Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 7/3/21
Leaving
the Music City Center in Nashville, TN two weeks ago, my wife and I along with
long lines of literally thousands of other Southern Baptists paused at the
first street corner to wait for the walk signal. Only a few yards away from the
curb were five men bearing a Black Lives Matter banner and blaring over their
microphone, “Southern Baptists are racists and hypocrites.”
I
wish that the five men had been inside the vast convention hall where the
Southern Baptist Convention had just wrapped up its annual meeting. I wish they
could have seen the Black singers, Black preachers, and Black speechmakers,
particularly Pastor Fred Luter, the first Black president of the SBC (2012-2014)
as he nominated for President the candidate who was elected.
More
importantly I wish the profane, accusatory men could have seen 15,726 Whites,
Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico slip
from their chairs, kneel uncomfortably in limited space, and pray for each
other, the nation, and the world. It might also have been of interest to the
five protestors, though maybe not, to hear from two of the six SBC seminary
presidents that their seminary enrolments are now over 50% non-Anglo.
Any
way you cut it, church is sociology. Birds of a feather flock together. Even
so, Southern Baptists for some time now have been convicted that their
congregations and denominational
gatherings should look more like heaven is going to look: “saints from all the
nations.”
Americans have always been a religious people.
Churches are everywhere, 47,000 of which are Southern Baptist. Hospitals,
schools, colleges, orphanages, and rehab centers have been built and funded by
America’s church goers of all denominations. It’s indisputable that wherever
the Christian faith has gone schools and hospitals have followed. (Full
disclosure: I have not researched to find out how many schools and hospitals
have been built by American Atheists or the Atheist Alliance.)
Southern Baptists, with
over 14 million members, are still the largest Protestant group in America.
Like other Protestants and Catholics, Southern Baptists often disagree with
each other. Much has been made of a “split,” “division,” and “turmoil” amongst
Southern Baptists. Don’t believe it. Never has there been an annual meeting
without internal disputed issues. The Nashville gathering, however, was a
typical prayer-bathed business meeting and a time of worship. The new
president, Pastor Ed Litton of Saraland, Alabama and his losing opponent, the
silver-tongued orator/seminary president/activist Al Mohler evidenced their
grace and Christian charity with respectful words for each other.
On
the evening just after Litton was elected president, he appeared on CNN’s Erin
Burnett show. Gleefully, Burnett gave the setup: “The Southern Baptist
Convention has just elected a moderate as their president. He’s coming right
up.” Right up, though, Litton kindly but forcefully corrected Burnett. “I’m not
a moderate. I’m a theological conservative.” Burnett, visibly stunned,
wrongfully suggested that because Litton has spoken out for racial
reconciliation and works with a multiracial group of pastors in the Mobile
area, he must not represent the rank and file. How insulting.
Litton’s
defense of his conservative creds brought to my mind the fact that as much as
Southern Baptists and other evangelicals disagree with each other at times,
they are all strong on the fundamentals of the faith: the virgin birth, the
sinless life, the substitutionary/sacrificial death, and the literal
resurrection, not to mention Christ’s great commission to share the Gospel.
That’s why some refer to Southern Baptists as Great Commission Baptists.
The SBC is a voluntary
fellowship of “co-operating” churches. It is totally non-hierarchical and each
church is totally autonomous. To refer to “problems within the SBC” is
absolutely vague and misleading, though individual churches certainly do often
have problems.
Interviewed
by the National Review, Litton stated, “The SBC did not inch left. My views of
marriage, gender identity, and homosexuality have not changed nor are they
going to change. They’re bound by Scripture and there I stand.”
The
Wall Street Journal also got it wrong: “The SBC is at war. Internal fissures
have exploded.” No, and no, Donald Trump has not divided the denomination, as
the WSJ foolishly suggested. Newsweek, CBS, and ABC also joyfully celebrated
the supposed “leftward turn” that Litton himself has denied.
This
stir will not stop evangelicals from spreading the Gospel or from speaking out
on social issues. Keeping quiet on abortion, injustice, perversion and moral
degeneracy would dishonor the cries of the Old Testament prophets; the Methodist, William Wilberforce; the
Lutheran, Dietrich Bonheoffer; and two great Baptists, Martin Luther King and
Billy Graham.
I
doubt that the Great Commission Southern Baptists will ever keep quiet and I
pray that they won’t.
Roger Hines
July 1, 2021
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