Sorry, I forgot to credit Greg Davidson with this post. I deleted all the comments, which mostly seemed to be chastising GREG for my mistake. Now, feel free to start commenting on the post.
I, like many, appreciate the loving Christ-like, Spirit-filled attitude of most in our Southern Baptist Convention. Most of us are committed to keeping the main thing the main thing. Yet, there are two small groups that have emerged in the SBC who are polarizing in their attitudes; and distracting some from their main mission.
There is a small group on one side that I would refer to as out-of-balance Calvinists. Now I want to be clear, I have had many friends and professors who were Calvinists; furthermore, there was great unity of spirit between us, for, while we disagreed on some finer points of theology, our focus was on the main things: passionate worship, fruitful evangelism, missions, discipleship, community, revival, and agreement on the great fundamentals of the faith. We all united under the blood-stained banner of the Cross to take back our convention from the liberals, and take the gospel to the nations.
Strangely there is a new group of Calvinists that actually believe that the more points of TULIP you adhere to, the more spiritual you are. Furthermore, this group is committed to placing their fellow 5 pointers in leadership to maintain the “highest spirituality and doctrinal purity”, and deliberately exclude shallow “non-Calvinists.”
On the other side of the spectrum, you have a small group of non-Calvinists who believe many of the ills of the convention can be placed on the shoulders of those who believe Calvinist theology. They are suspicious, believing anyone who is a Calvinist has a high possibility of destroying evangelism and eliminating non-Calvinists from leadership opportunities. They have concluded that the only way to counter this threat is to eliminate all Calvinists from leadership.
Then there are most of us in the middle who watch these out of balance individuals on both sides attack the effectiveness and the character of godly men and woman based on their shallow perspective.
For those of us who have maintained a godly balance, our main concern is not how many points of Tulip does a person believe or disbelieve, but rather does this individual love Jesus, are they reaching the lost, are they discipling, are they mobilizing people to pray, do they believe and preach the great fundamentals of the faith and great theology, are they investing in Great Commission missions, are they godly people, and are they standing strong for the poor and the abused.
Most of us are not impressed when we meet someone, and they almost immediately inform us “I am Reformed.” We are equally unimpressed by those we meet who toss out, early, in their encounters with us, “You can be sure I am not one of those Calvinists.”
Most of us have the depth of spiritually to focus on the aforementioned main purposes of Great Commission Christians. I want to encourage all of us to call our beloved SBC to join in following the passionate urging of Jesus, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one another,” and to continue afresh and anew not to be distracted by polarizing groups, but to keep love for our Lord and the Great Commission at the front and center of our vision and mission.
Greg Davidson is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church of Vacaville, California.
I forgot to add Greg’s name to this.
Several of you chastised the author. It was MY mistake, not his. I deleted all the comments and we will start over.
Can we start chastising you now?
Thanks.
Greg, who are these people? You have quotes, from whom?
*Strangely there is a new group of Calvinists that actually believe that the more points of TULIP you adhere to, the more spiritual you are. Furthermore, this group is committed to placing their fellow 5 pointers in leadership to maintain the “highest spirituality and doctrinal purity”, and deliberately exclude shallow “non-Calvinists.”*
I haven’t known Calvinists like that since college. And they were in college, too, and so weren’t going to be allowed to exclude anybody from anything. I’d give any one of them the benefit of the doubt that 25 years later, they’ve matured past it.
I recognize some of these fears about Calvinists, because it matches the way I saw some behave, again, back in their college days. But nobody’s going to give them the keys to the church van (since you have to be 25 to drive it) much less the keys to the kingdom.
I think we need to all remember to give people, including Calvinists, space to grow and mature in how they handle themselves. That guy who was like that at 19 may be very different now that he’s 52 and in a leadership role.
Not sure if our HARD 5 point Calvinist pastor got the keys to the van but he got the keys to our traditional Baptist church because he did not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when asked about Calvinism in his interview. Apparently being untruthful is acceptable to some (hopefully not all) of the newer preachers as long as they get a job. Needless to say, years later we are still suffering with the consequences of a broken fellowship in our church.
Now my view point is very narrow because I have only this one negative experience with a young pastor. We need to pray that their schooling does not influence them to do such things. I am not sure since other churches in the convention have also experienced similar situations.
I enjoy reading everyone’s point of view.
I hear the words “broken fellowship” when speaking of Cals and their churches, but I have a hard time believing this.
Lynn: I think more detail than you have given is necessary, yet I don’t want to read more detail. I do have a big aversion to Pen and Pulpit along with SBCToday who I don’t think tell the truth ever.
These are people that I have had private conversations with who strongly believe these principles.
Casual conversations among us are one thing. A concerted effort to fill all denominational leadership positions with rabid Cals is another. We’ve never had that but we did have an open declaration of war by the Trads that was unnecessary and unhelpful. You had actual quotations. I take it these were not from Cals of consequence.
I just have a difficult time buying that Greg. I have never heard that from any sermon, or Calvinist ever. Never. Ever.
I think Greg’s perception of this may possibly be partially fueled because in most entity head vacancies in the past 15 years or so a non-Calvinist has been replaced either by a Calvinist or “could easily be mistaken for a Calvinist” (Land replaced by Moore, Draper replaced by Rainer, Patterson replaced by Akin, Roberts replace by Allen, Reccord replaced eventually by Ezell, Eliff replaced by Platt). I don’t think there is an organized campaign here but I think some non-Cals are thinking they are being systematically excluded. Now if all 4 (or even 3 of the 4) of our current vacancies get filled by Calvinists, then that would add fuel to this fire whether that is deserved or not.
Just trying to help us understand each other a little bit.
Scott: I think you need to do a little research. None of the ones you mentioned are Calvinists. Not one person. I will not be participating as it seems no research to see what is true and what is not is necessary and I am tired of refuting misinformation which this thread is going to be full of along with other things it is full of……
Debbie,
I am not sure why I have drawn your hostility and wrath for simply stating what I have learned that others are thinking. I wasn’t citing official research to support their opinion – just reporting what others have said combined with my personal opinion of why they think that way. Didn’t realize that was wrath worthy.
Scott,
You have framed the issue beautifully. People jump to conclusions and are focusing on the wrong issues. The main issue is: are we carrying out the Great Commission, instead of being preoccupied with labels? You have always been gifted in this area as was your father before you.
I’m all for working together and getting along. After some reflection on this article, I suppose my issue is with the fact that it seems like it presents an equivalence between the Cals and Trads in regard to denominational and trustee decisions. We’ve always had theological sub-groups, some members of which would rather snarl and fight than work together but we’ve only had one group lately who stated a political goal of electing their people “year-after-year-after-year” and who had a litmus test document to judge folks by.
If those stated and specific goals are laid aside, and it may be that the late Spring turmoil in the Trad org has caused them to do that, then maybe we are back to people arguing their soteriological positions but not expecting to impose it on the convention machinery.
William Thornton,
I don’t know Greg Davidson. Nonetheless, I do know some to the contributors to SBC Voices have written posts very similar to his. There are polarizing groups among us. Their numbers have grown in the last decade. I think Mr. Davidson has written a pretty fair article.
I believe the basic premise of this article is flawed. Sadly. I believe the major cause of our growing divisiveness is not rigid Trads or Cage stage Cals. It is the ‘big middle’ who have a very shallow faith. I really find no evidence for the statement describing the vast majority of the SBC (mbrs or leaders) as a “loving Christ-like, Spirit-filled attitude.’ Most Southern Baptists really do not understand what being Spirit-filled even is! We depend far too much on what we can accomplish in the flesh in the SBC…and that trickles down into our churches as well. We are also becoming an increasingly polarized denomination with high opinions of our theology or NO OPINION about theology (consider how popular Joyce Meyer and Joes Osteen are about SBCers). The theme song of the SBC seems to be ‘Everything is Awesome’ from the Lego movie. Our leaders want us to be constantly celebrating the SBC without investigating if we really have anything to celebrate about. Until our leaders are willing to bravely lead us into honest conversations about our past, present and future why should we expect church leaders to do so? Until Trustees, Entity Leaders, Seminaries and other Convention leaders get convicted enough of ‘the sin within’ to speak frankly to it to God and one another we will continue to be a denomination in decline with a back exit door that gets busier every year. …Everything in the SBC is NOT awesome!
Well, and I do not mean to be argumentative, but to me I don’t even know (or really care) what the “SBC” is. To me, the SBC is my local church. Is that church perfect? No, but we labor in Christ to reach our community and the world with salvation in Christ. Collectively my church joins with local SBC churches to serve the state and region, but what they individually do right or wrong matters little me. If they are Calvinist, so be it. If they are Traditional, so be it. What do I care?
Beyond that we give to a larger mission to reach our nation (NAMB) and the world (IMB). We also give to support the seminaries.
Beyond that, what is the SBC?
Allen, I understand your concerns. I also want to say I am aware that my issue is not the only issue out there. You bring up good points. We cannot do things in the flesh as a convention. We need deep teaching and more teaching on the Spirit filled life and exchanged life. I agree that we cannot blindly follow the heretical teachings of prosperity gospel Joyce Myers, and Joel Osteen who publicly declares that Mormons are Christians. I also agree that we cannot be at, “Ease in Zion,” but in this crisis hour we must see clearly the need to cry out to the Lord for spiritual awakening and revival.
I do believe, though, that the rank and file Southern Baptist pastor are men of God who exemplify Jesus. For years I taught FAITH evangelism seminars for LifeWay across the country. I met hundreds of pastors. Many of them church planters and bi-vocational pastors who worked all hours of the day in order to preach the gospel. I met men who worked three and four jobs (86 percent of our pastors are bi-vocational). I met one church planter who opened his home as a bed and breakfast, owned a side technology business, and worked another part time job in order to feed his family, and preach the gospel. These are the humble unsung hero’s of our convention who cannot even afford time or money to even go to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Do we see carnal flesh and superficial preaching at our convention meetings at times? I can say that this article was not meant to deal with that huge subject. But I can say, that if there is, It is not representative of the many godly pastors in our convention that very few know, and have met. If we feel our convention needs to go to the next level, and it always should, then lets get involved with a loving spirit and make it better.