If you have been following the deliberations at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (but then, why would you, there are better circuses to watch?), you are aware of their decisions -- all of which underscore the point of this post that Southern Baptist are more lost than the world they wish to save.
In the last few decades, the denomination has become increasingly marginalized. It is rapidly declining and today is the laughingstock of the Christian and non-Christian world, not to speak of the religious and non-religious.
The five most notable decisions made by Southern Baptist at this year's convention meeting are these:
• They changed their name. Well, not officially. They call their new designation a mere "descriptor." From now on, Southern Baptists will be described as "Great Commission Baptists."
That clears things up, doesn't it? Everything except the thorny-little-issue-today-that-soon-will-be-a-big-issue tomorrow. Perhaps you, too, can hear the question from a confused but newly-designated Great Commission Southern Baptist? "Now that we're Great Commission Baptists, are we to make disciples of 'all people' or just the 'elect'?"
It is for this reason, I suppose, the leaders of these Great Commission Southern Baptists...
•Reaffirmed the Baptist Faith & Message statement concluding it provides "sufficient understanding of the doctrine of salvation."
Whew! It's a good thing that passed. Had it not, there might have been a division in this ever-diminishing denomination as a debate ensued on the floor of their Convention between the Calvinists-Baptists and Arminian-Baptists or the "Particular-Atonement Great Commission Southern Baptists" and the "General-Atonement Great Commission Southern Baptists." That debate which, coincidentally, is coming will have to wait for another day. One can handle only so much confusion in one convention.
•For the first time in their history, they affirmed the "sinner's prayer" as the means of activating Divine grace, but warned, "it is not an incantation that results in salvation merely by its recitation."
I bet Bill Bright and D. James Kennedy just turned with excitement in their graves. Their "sinner's prayer" is on its way to becoming a dogma within the Baptist denomination.
•They reaffirmed their belief in the doctrine of inerrancy to save Adam and Eve.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it ironic that these Great Commission Southern Baptists will readily debate whether you or I or anyone else might be among the "elect," but, by golly, they will stop at nothing to save Adam and Eve, even if they must pass a resolution every year at every annual Convention.
"To hell with Adam and Steve, we must save Adam and Eve." Which is, of course...
•Why they once again at this year's convention denied the efforts of others to legalize "same-sex marriage" by reaffirming that, to these Great Commission Southern Baptists, it is not a "civil-rights issue."
In other words, just in case Adam and Steve might have forgotten, these Great Commission Southern Baptists want us to remember that God created Adam and Eve NOT Adam and Steve.
Like I said earlier, there are better circuses to watch. Which makes this one all the more unfortunate. Southern Baptists...Great Commission Baptists...whoever these people are -- and I'm pretty certain they no longer know -- have found themselves yet again engaging in meaningless debates and making disastrous and divisive decisions. Proof further, if you ask me, Great Commission Southern Baptists are more lost than the world they once hoped to save.