I am compelled to direct you to Dr. Morris Chapman’s blog.
As you know by now, I have committed to lay off the politics of the SBC here at 12 Witnesses. You also probably know by now that I have been prevailed upon to be a contributing editor at the new SBC Outpost. That site is to set to become the one stop shopping place for all the political issues in the SBC, yet it is not launched in it’s new form. That is due to come out on July 2, 2007.
Since the Outpost is not yet ready, this is timely, I originally said that I would cover the SBC here for at least another week and since I feel that Dr. Chapman deserves to speak for himself on this issue, and not be liabled as some are want to do, I reference you to this article.
In it, he discusses the motion to adopt the EC statement, Calvinism, PPL and Water Baptism and how these things are all addressed in the BFM. It is a must read.
m o r r i s c h a p m a n . c o m
Further, could I note that Dr. Chapman refers to the Executive Committee as the “EC,” my chosen abbreviation, and not X-Comm, Marty’s chosen not so abbreviated abbreviation? Just saying…
Oh, and one more thing. The BFM is the BFM. Whatever our current version adopted by the convention is the BFM. By constantly calling it the BFM2000, BFM2k or anything else, we elevate the previous version as the standard and this one the interloper. Conservatives across the convention give actual moderates (as opposed to conservatives liabled as moderates) who still prefer the 1963 version the high ground concerning the validity of the BFM. Just call it the BFM.
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Kevin Bussey
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 10:42 pm:
“If we are talking about a private prayer language,
should not the person praying keep the prayer language private? If the person keeps the prayer language private, should not the person who has the inclination to judge keep his/her opinions private? Why should private prayer language become a dispute among members of the same family of believers?”
Since you gave up for this post–I did too. :)
That quote is very wise in my opinion.
Hashman
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 10:43 pm:
Thanks for the heads up on the Morris post.
You my BFF.
KBH
Art Rogers
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 10:53 pm:
That’s just amazing. This post is up 5 minutes and has two comments.
Missionality gets 1 comment all day. :)
Thanks for joining in, fellas. I was beginning to think I was all alone out here. :)
Kevin Bussey, you gave up more than I did. I was only out a day…
Hash, long time no talk. Hope you are well. From what I read on your blog, things at the church are going well. Praise God.
Dorcas Hawker
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:08 pm:
I think maybe you could stop worrying about or apologizing for writing about SBC stuff. As Alan Cross once told me, declarations of blog intent rarely go the way we plan, so just write what you want to write.
As to your other post, I am just out of the loop as to this Glocalization book. I have this sense that unless I read the book first I would say something that is already covered. But be encouraged, I read your blog most everyday … just to get my daily retinal scorching from the white on black type. :)
I had read Morris Chapman’s article earlier (Bloglines comes in handy). I have found he often has solid words of wisdom for our convention.
Hashman
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:11 pm:
Things are going well. I’m in a rough patch right now. We are trying to negotiate the move to two services beginning in August and I’m getting ultimatums from key leaders saying that if we don’t do this such and such a way, they are going to leave the church. Grrrrrrrrrrr. I love blackmail.
I thought that the worship wars were over. I need prayer specifically in the next 3 days, leading to our members meeting Sunday night.
KBH
Art Rogers
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:12 pm:
Thanks for the encouragement, Dorcas.
I don’t know why everyone hates my color scheme. It’s my thing!
Oh, well. I have actually downloaded a new theme for my new direction and will switch soon. It’s normal black on white. Blah.
Art Rogers
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:15 pm:
Hash,
You got it bro.
Art Rogers
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:16 pm:
Speaking of which, you can pray for our big meeting Sunday night as well. Many things in the hopper. Growth pains. :)
Paul
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:26 pm:
I shared with our church about this issue last night. In the end I told them that we must keep the main thing the main thing and that my priority is to work with whoever has a burning desire to take Christ to the nations even if they are people who baptize babies or speak in tongues. I got the loudest “amen” of the night right after I said that, and that from the “lifelong Baptist” crowd.
Our church is simply not that uptight about “our clear Baptist identity.” They are much more concerned with our identity in Christ. If that makes us bad Baptists then so be it. We can always cooperate (or collaborate) with other Great Commission Christians and leave things like the closed vs open communion debate, or the “authorized baptizer” debate to those who have nothing better to do with their time.
Paul
on Jun 21st, 2007
@ 11:41 pm:
By the way, in the famous words of the prophet Banta on Seinfeld, this is pure gold: “Now that the Southern Baptist Convention has settled the matter of the inerrancy of God’s Word, and we have in common the tenets of our faith regarding the preexistence of Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, atoning death, bodily resurrection, and literal ascension into heaven, and other essential doctrines, why do we find it so difficult to coexist in harmonious fellowship? Will Southern Baptists move beyond the distractions caused by constantly badgering each other and instigating heated debates concerning interpretations of doctrines not addressed in the BF&M about which we may never agree? Can we not agree to keep our focus upon obeying Christ’s command to tell the world that “Jesus saves?” Our inability to concentrate upon reaching souls for Christ and sending thousands of missionaries throughout the world will be the cost of not finding good in each other.”
Brian
on Jun 22nd, 2007
@ 9:03 am:
When I was in the Army, they had the new “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. During basic training, one of my drill sergeants said, “It may be don’t ask, don’t tell; but we like to investigate and figure out.”
By the very nature of a PRIVATE prayer language, it should be “don’t ask, don’t tell. Unfortunately, the IMB seems to be taking my old drill sergeant’s advice.
Paul,
“Our church is simply not that uptight about “our clear Baptist identity.” They are much more concerned with our identity in Christ. If that makes us bad Baptists then so be it. We can always cooperate (or collaborate) with other Great Commission Christians and leave things like the closed vs open communion debate, or the “authorized baptizer” debate to those who have nothing better to do with their time.”
Our churches must be clones.
Art Rogers
on Jun 22nd, 2007
@ 2:18 pm:
Well, that’s just it about “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” isn’t it? It never quite works out that way.
Which is why it hasn’t worked for the military and won’t work at SWBTS. Of course, the IMB and NAMB operate under no such delusions. They ask on purpose.
Thanks for the insight, Brian.
GeneMBridges
on Jun 22nd, 2007
@ 8:21 pm:
I just put up a post about my thoughts on the current discussion @ Tblogue.
Brad Williams dropped by and left this jewel, and it bears repeating here:
Brad said:
I struggle as a pastor because I serve a church that has been without discipline for 60 years. We are a plateaued/declining church, and I lament that after three and a half years of labor that many people in the church still could not clearly articulate the gospel. I’ve got 250 people on the roll that are completely AWOL, and I can’t get those who remain to admit that this is a serious problem. Do you seriously think my biggest concern should be that a couple of those who remain are blabbing nonsense in the privacy of their prayer closet? And even if they were full-blown nut cases, how can we discipline them when we’ve got 250 others who don’t even bother showing up who are up to who knows what?
>>>And therein lies the reason I’m going to keep talking about integrity in membership and trying to get all you guys and gals to keep that topic alive for the next year.
We’ve approved the BFM and reaffirmed it, but we can’t seem to get the gospel itself right in the local churches. Something is amiss!
Cyle Clayton
on Jun 24th, 2007
@ 10:01 pm:
Thanks for calling attention to this article. We just finished a cell group meeting at my house and I was just broken over our failure to reach the lost and our prayerlessness. I am so glad to hear Chapman say, “If every, and I emphasize, every Southern Baptist were to pray earnestly and urgently, “God, forgive me of my arrogance, self-centered ambition, envy, greed, and worldliness,” we could begin to live with the expectancy that God’s Spirit will move mightily among us.”
When there is no fruit, when heaven is shut and there is no rain, God said that we needed to humble ourselves, repent, and pray seeking His face, not His hand, but His face. Can you imagine what would happen if every Baptist would begin to pray like this. I’m going to. I’ve seen real revival before, when people repented publicly of sins and hundreds of people were saved and people walked in off the streets because they were drawn to God. I want to see it again.
We really need to pray.
Quinn Hooks
on Jun 26th, 2007
@ 12:10 pm:
Don’t change the colors! I like it! It has that Star Wars light/dark thing going on here :) Thanks for the link.