SBC Voices

Last week William Thornton and J D Greear published articles about the low baptism statistics in the SBC. Between them they mentioned most of the pertinent factors. J D Greear led by lamenting the low level of spiritual fervency in our churches. For sure, he is not the only one to mention that. In the comments on William’s post, Bob Cleveland wrote this: “When I read the account, in Acts, of the day of Pentecost, which resulted in 3,000 people being saved and baptized, I must ask what they had that we don’t have today. Because, whatever it is, it’s missing now.” Bob’s comment inspired me to … [Read more...] about Can We Experience the Book of Acts Today?

We are less than one hundred days out from the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando and from a contested presidential election between Al Mohler and Randy Adams. Mohler is ubiquitous in SBC life from his position as president of our oldest seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Adams is CEO of the Northwest Baptist Convention which covers Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho and was listed as having 417 churches in 2018. Adams has been active in writing and tweeting about SBC matters and his personal positions. I'd say that I haven't seen a candidate as actively campaigning for SBC … [Read more...] about One good thing about Randy Adams’ SBC presidential candidacy: No use of Non-disclosure agreements

Attendance at the SBC Annual Meeting in my active SBC lifetime has ranged from under five thousand to over forty-five thousand. We can expect less then the convention is outside of the traditional southern cities that regularly host the meeting (Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Antonio; more recently Louisville, Birmingham, Greensboro and others). We Baptists like to travel and it's a boost for SBC work outside of the traditional south for the meeting to be held in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland, and other cities. The farther from where the … [Read more...] about The bad idea that keeps coming back: remote voting for the SBC Annual Meeting

Doesn't really need an explanation. The numbers of baptisms by churches affiliated with the SBC is a decent measure of what's going on in evangelism in our churches and the number of dunks is in a long term, persistent, consistent slide downward. The last reporting year, 2018, showed 246,442 baptisms. Reporters who are fond of comparisons harken readers back to the 1940s for such baptism numbers as we see today, lowest since 1944 ("since Roosevelt was president! "since D-Day" "since sunscreen was invented"). So, J. D. Greear explains why baptisms are down and in his view "the primary … [Read more...] about Baptisms are down. Woe is us. Can this be explained?

(This chapel message was preached by Dr. Yarnell after the passing of distinguished SWBTS professor Dr. Garrett.)  Our key texts today are found in Matthew 5 and 11. Among the first beatitudes of his inaugural sermon, Jesus said, “Blessed are the gentle [hoi praeis], for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Later, after praying to the Father who gave him all things, Jesus invited the disciples, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle [praüs eimi] and humble in heart, and you will find rest … [Read more...] about “Blessed Are the Gentle” (Chapel Tribute for James Leo Garrett Jr.) – Dr. Malcolm Yarnell

We've had several articles here about the happenings at the SBC Executive Committee Meeting last week. On Monday night, Ronnie Floyd presented his new plan called Vision 2025 to the Executive Committee. William published an article on the plan here at SBC Voices. But Vision 2025 was quickly overshadowed by the actions the Executive Committee took the following day. It's one of my frustrations with the EC right now. We should be focusing on Vision 2025. Instead, it was almost forgotten just as quickly as it was presented. But today in Baptist Press, Dr. Floyd published an article with … [Read more...] about Floyd explains Vision 2025

Controversy is not new to Baptist life.  More than sixty years ago many promised fireworks at the annual meeting if their issues were not addressed, others predicted a convention divided, and everyone was grumbling about supposed problems with professors.  I’m not talking about our most recent controversy though.  Those issues and more were at stake in the early 1960s.  In 1961 doctrinal controversy was set off by the release of the book “Message in Genesis” by Ralph Elliot.  The release of the book merely brought to the surface tensions which had long been simmering.  There was a concern … [Read more...] about A Statement For all Baptists (Luke Holmes)