Many of you might remember that a couple of months ago I wrote about what we needed in the next Southern Baptist president. At the end of my post I said that I felt Dr. Daniel Akin was the man for the job.
His latest chapel message is evidence as to why I feel he is the best man for the job. I do not think anyone could of laid out a better vision for the Southern Baptist Convention. I encourage all of you to follow the link below and listen or read the message.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr. Akin is a true, biblical peacemaker. He stands firmly on scriptural principles while at the same time building bridges between less irenic factions within the SBC. His Building Bridges and Convergent Conferences have been extremely beneficial to our convention. Most impressive is his focus on bringing a Great Commission Resurgence to the SBC.
I would love to see Dr. Akin as the next SBC president–and I’m not even a Southeastern grad!
Pastor Jims last blog post..Product Placement Gone Wild!
If he were running, I would gladly vote for him!
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I agree that Danny Akin would make an outstanding president and hope he will run in 2010.
One question: Do you think there will there be the same outcry that a seminary president should not be Convention president like there was when Dr. Mohler was a candidate?
Todd Benkerts last blog post..Multiple Bible Translations – part 1: A Blessing and a Curse
Todd,
No I do not… That cry was a cry from people who didn’t want a 5 point Calvinist. This time we will only hear a cry from those who care more about covering up their hypocrisy.. IMHO.
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I would gladly vote for and endorse Dr. Danny Akin. I have had the privilage to see Dr. Akin up close and personal. He is a man of great integrity and a great love for the gospel. I can think of no other man that would turn the tide in our convention. While I am thankful for the SBC and support our CP, I am fearful of what future days look like unless there is a Great Commission Resurgence. I think that the SBC needs an overhaul in many areas. This starts in Nashville and must work it’s way down to the associational level. I am optimistic about the days ahead and pray for revival to come to our convention and our churches.
Dr. Akin’s rebuttal of Dr Chapman’s attack on calvinists speaks well in his behalf and of the wisdom of the founders who in the 1787 agreement between Separate and Regular Baptists when they agreed to become United Baptists intended to convey to the future some of the liberality that biblical orthodoxy had imparted to them. What most people do not realize is that a great deal of the means for effectuating a viable future might well be found by a close study and a long reflection upon the principles and practices of our forebearers. In the process of doing 6 yrs of research (from 1963-1969 (3000 5×8 notecards covering more than 250 sources and all 2000 yrs. of church history, especially from the perspective of the persecuted brethren, the underdogs of Christian history), writing a thesis in American Social and Intellectual History on “The Baptists and Ministerial Qualifications:1750-1850″, Morehead State University, Ky., 1971, and then pastoring in the Sandy Creek Baptist Association (one of the 5 assns. covered in the thesis) for 11 years, 1972-1983, and then thinking upon the experience, the history, the biblical ideas/truths involved for 37 years, one comes to realize that there is more, far more to the reality and granduer of God’s work among the Baptists (as well as other believers in American History) than we dare to imagine. Consider this: The First and Second Great Awakenings are two of the greatest events in world history, since the time of our Lord Himself. They took the Reformation which was a gospel recovery effort and transformed it from a persecuting and other deleterious mental, etc., aberrations into an outgoing, winsome reflection of what the Gospel can do and be for the world. There is the creation of a government with maximum freedoms which recognizes the depravity of man, the liberty to think for the individual, the freedom to associate voluntarily in charitable, spiritual, and other endeavors. The recognition of the worth of the individual as well as a group without detriment to one or the other is unique in world history. We really need an institute in one of our seminaries/universities devoted to a study of the early Baptists, the Great Awakenings, all of church history, the doctrines of the Bible and their nature and how they apply and/or can be applied to the church, to individuals, to missions, etc. One of the things I found was that the doctrines are two-sided and designed to make the believer balanced, flexible, creative, and magnetic. Paradoxical intervention is also a reality that I stumbled across as well as polarizing effects of one-sided doctrines. In a discussion with a chairman of a Psychology Dept. of a major state university, I said in 1974 that I thought I had discoverd one explanation for insanity. He was quite interested and wanted me to do an M.A. and a Ph.D. in the field. Contrast how the Baptists called other Protestants their “pedobaptist brethren” with how they called one another “the antichrist” after the split between Primitive and Missionary Baptists. We really need an application of the Johari window technique to our theological thinking and presentations and implementations in order to get a handle on what can occur as a result of our efforts to apply Christian truths in daily life. This is not to question those truths. That has been our problem ever since the introduction of so-called critical thinking (Voltairian skepticism – the philosophes cynical approach to anything supernatural) into Christian and biblical studies. Suggestive is the Jesus committee that finds only a few grunts from that historical person – if (one wonders if that is not their real position) he ever existed. If Dr. Akin can do with other areas what he has so ably done with reference to the fearful and prejudicial remarks of Chapman, then we might well be seeing what will become the resurgence of the Great Commission in Southern Baptist life. We really need a vast understanding of the theological nature and application of doctrine in order that we might go in and win back to unity the vast number of disaffected Baptists. Does anyone have confidence in our principles enough to believe that they are so designed as to accomplish the seemingly impossible, namely, to win the whole world honestly, candidly, transparently, with the most winsome reality of the Lord Jesus Christ whom we preach and teach? All of this is said with a view to promote efforts, prayerful and other wise, at seeking the blessing of a Third Great Awakening, the one that takes the whole earth and every last soul upon it in one generation and perhaps for a 1000 more. Would that many come close to fulfilling the reality seen by John in the Revelation of Christ of “a number which no man could number?” Perhaps, the idea of the elect being gathered from one end of the heavens to the other implies that man might go to the stars and spread through out the universe (has he already made efforts that we do not know about?). Who knows what shall be? God alone, and He has plans to do us good beyond our dreams. Orthodoxy, biblical orthodoxy, has, I believe, the key to unlimited possiblities for mankind, far better than our limited imaginations can conceive – even better than the so-called “prosperity gospel” invalids with their grandiosity dreams. Humility is the great Key to all possibilities, including accepting the setbacks that must inevitably be involved. No pain, no gain. The greatest pains lead with God’s blessing to the greatest gains.
.-= Dr. James Willingham´s last blog ..The Climax of the Reformation =-.